


Silent Partner, Unfinished Business

by Huitzil



Category: 100 Bullets - Fandom, Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Yotsuba Arc, Angst, Aphasia, Case Fic, Cover Art, Dark Comedy, Death, Disabled Character, Dubious Morality, F/F, Fix-It, Gun Violence, Love Triangles, Naomi Lived, No Crossover Knowledge Required, Original Character(s), POV Multiple, Redemption, Revenge, Romance, Slow Burn, minor crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-10-25 23:45:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 186,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17734931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huitzil/pseuds/Huitzil
Summary: They told Naomi Misora she was dead for three minutes when paramedics revived her. She sure didn't feel alive. She couldn't even remember coming back to Japan, much less Kira taking her fiance, much less Kira sending her to suicide, maiming her and robbing her brain of speech. She had almost given up hope of recovery until a mysterious figure gave the promise of revenge: the chance to kill those who wronged her, if only she can find them.Aphasic and adrift, Naomi's going to join the Kira investigation to win her life back. She's going to help Misa Amane discover who she is, and discover a connection with her. She's going to make Light Yagami have to think on his feet, and present him with a new opportunity. She's going to solve some serious problems for L, and then make some serious problems for L. And she's going to make a hell of a lot of things get a lot more complicated.





	1. One Is The Lowliest Number

**Author's Note:**

> This is a minor crossover with Brian Azarello and Eduardo Risso's "100 Bullets". Since 100 Bullets is an anthology series, all this means is that there is a single scene in the first chapter with a guy who is clearly from something else. He will lay out the premise and everything you need to know, and then he's gone. Just like how a Twilight Zone crossover would mean a story is submitted for your approval by Rod Serling.
> 
> The Los Angeles BB Murders happened in the context of this story, in the general shape of the novel's events but not quite with its specifics. Other specific details of DN canon may be massaged to make them a bit more logical.
> 
> Special thanks to my beta readers Ellie and SwingingStar. Cover art provided by the incredibly talented @Groove1121 on Twitter.

Kira. The mysterious killer who could murder anyone worldwide with just their name and face. The most important matter in the history of law enforcement. I remember L, the so-called World's Greatest Detective, had narrowed the killer's location down to Japan. I remember the FBI sent twelve agents to assist the investigation, and one was my fiance, Raye. We were talking about me coming along with him, because he’d be doing administrative work, and I could take him to meet my parents the way he took me to meet his. I wanted to make sure everything was smooth before we could start a family. I remember... I remember there was a hotel room. Why did we get a hotel, when we hadn’t left yet? We hadn’t decided if I should stay. I remember asking him to shut the curtains. I remember I picked up a phone, and from that point, everything was just one long nightmare.

I pick up the phone and I hear a cacophony of the wailing, anguished dead denied the gates of Heaven or Hell, screaming my name, unable to hear me call back. I am alone.

A man with a blacked-out face and two smoldering red embers for eyes tricks me into opening my mouth; he opens his coat and reveals his flesh is made of writhing snakes before he shoves a bronze spear down my gullet. I am betrayed.

I am yanked around, made to dance like a marionette, hangman's nooses tied to every part of my body. They jerk my limbs back and forth to emulate the way I walk and talk and speak, twisting my body into something that is no longer my own. Nobody around me can see it and I can't make it stop no matter how much I thrash and scream. I am violated.

I open my neck and write a sonnet of lies in the steaming blood. I look out from the edge of a cliff upon an ocean of crow feathers and leering jaundiced eyes; on the horizon a wide, grinning maw has replaced the sun, the teeth jagged and uneven. It pulls me toward it with a force not my mind nor muscle can resist, and I am dead. 

Again. And again. And again.

And then I was awake. I was laying in a bed in a paper smock, with a needle in my arm, metal electrodes stuck to my head and chest, and a man in a white smock picking up my leg.

If I'd considered the things that I saw and felt, rationally, I would have come to the conclusion I was in a hospital and the man was either a doctor or nurse. Instead, I half-screamed half-grunted and I tried to kick him in the face. He yelped, let go of me, and took a step back, my feeble attack fell limply down to the bed. My arms and legs felt heavy and so weak, it felt like for every meter of effort I was putting in I only got a few centimeters of motion. I tried to scream for help, but my jaw was so weak...

And I couldn't find the words. I stared at his shocked eyes, I let out a weak, gurgling moan, I tried to shout. What... What was the word for 'Stop'? It was on the tip of my tongue. and it fled, instantly. What was, how, how did I say 'Help me'? Maybe I couldn't speak English. He was a Japanese guy, I might be back in Japan. I could... What... What was the Japanese word for 'Japanese'? How did I say Raye's name?

I didn't know how to talk. Why didn't I know how to talk?

"Oh my God, lady," said the young man in the smock, in Japanese, with his hand over his chest. "Damn near gave me a heart attack!" We stared at each other for a few seconds, eyes wide and terrified. He was panting, my breath was shuddering and uneven. Finally he said "I'm, uh, supposed to move your limbs around every couple of days so you don't atrophy too bad. That's what I was doing when you woke up. Are you awake? Say something -- tell me your name."

Naomi Misora. My name is Naomi Misora. "Nnnnngghhhh..." Naomi. Naomi Misora. "Hhhhhhh..." I didn't, I can't, what is my NAME, it's Naomi Misora but what IS it why can't I SAY IT? I started to weep. I wanted to throw something, but couldn't move far enough.

"No verbal response," he said. "Eye movements are definitely purposeful. So... if you're actually in there, I'm just gonna go get the doctor, okay? I'll be right back."

He left. What could I say about it? I looked at my surroundings. I was in a hospital room, illuminated by harsh fluorescents, smelling faintly of disinfectant and ammonia. There were three other people in three other beds, not reacting to anything. The walls and ceiling were bare of decoration or amusement. I must have been in the coma ward, and judging by how long my fingernails were and how long my hair felt, I must have been there for a while.

So I was in a coma ward, and while I was unconscious, I was repeatedly experiencing some kind of symbolic betrayal, violation, and death. That made... some sense, I guess. I was afraid and I still couldn't move or talk in an unfamiliar place after losing an unknown amount of time, but I figured that out, and that was something. My nose itched. I couldn't scratch it. 

The young man came back in short order, carrying a black laptop, with the doctor leading him in. The doctor was an old man, his hair an obvious too-dark dye job, his face leathery and creased by age, laughter, and cigarette smoke. He was holding a folder that had to be my 'chart', and after a quick bow he said "Hello, miss! I'm Dr. Mitsumo, and I've been your doctor these past few months. This is Akira, he's a resident here. I know you're probably very afraid right now, and very confused, but I want you to know that you're safe here. Nobody is going to hurt you."

Akira took a hesitating step forward with the black laptop. "Uh, it looked like you're having trouble speaking... and, your fingers probably can't hold a pen right now, so, uh..." It took a second for me to realize he was waiting for my approval. It hurt, but I shook my head 'yes' at him. He stared at me for a couple seconds and I shook my head again, slower. "No? No... you can't use the computer?" he asked, like I hadn't been signalling 'yes'. I nodded again, very very slowly, and pain shot up my neck. "Okay, I'm just going to assume that one counts." He set the computer down in my lap, opened it up and turned it on, lifted my hand over the keys. 

"Today's date is March 19, 2007," the doctor said while Akira waited for the computer to boot up. "You've been in a coma for a little over ten weeks, and your muscles have atrophied in that time, which is why you're having difficulty moving. You're at Kanto Rosai hospital in Kanagawa right now. You're very lucky -- the paramedics said you were dead for three minutes before they revived you. The first thing I need to ask you is your name, miss. We can't contact your family without your name, and we just can't find the person your identification card says you are."

Akira's computer finally finished booting up; his desktop background was a kid hitting a giant baseball with a guitar. He opened up Notepad and stepped back to let me type. Moving my hand around was arduous, it was as if it was encased in lead, but it could move over the characters on the keys.

My name is Naomi Misora. They must have pulled my fake ID card from me, for Shoko Maki. Why did I have my fake ID on me? I must have been worried about Kira... there was no way that this was some ploy to get my name out of me since if they wanted me dead I was in a coma for ten weeks. But Raye knew my undercover name, and he'd be upset I was putting myself in danger, but if he heard Shoko Maki was in the hospital he'd be by my side. They needed to find Raye Penber... where was Raye? What was I doing here? What happened to us?

How did... how did I spell any of those words? What... what order do they go in?

"Take as much time as you like, miss," said the doctor as he leaned over to see what I was typing. I got as far as //H//. My name is Naomi Misora. What I needed more than anything was my fiance Raye. Where was he? Did he find Kira? Did I? Did Kira kill him? Did Kira kill both of us? Why can't I talk?

Nothing came out of me but confused grunts. I was trapped in my body, and my words trapped in my skull.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

I was a broken woman. 

Any fantasies of breaking out and finding Raye on my own withered away quickly. I wouldn't be able to run without them catching me. If they didn't try, I couldn't make it outside the building. If I did... I couldn't tell anyone what I wanted or who I was looking for. They didn't know who I was. Didn't know what I needed. I could emote to them -- they knew what food I liked and what I didn't. But I could barely hear from my left ear, and I couldn't seem to get across that concept. I discovered only after a lot of difficulty that I couldn't nod or shake my head "yes" and "no" any more. I thought what I was doing was obvious. But I was picking gestures at random without realizing it. 

Expressive aphasia due to brain lesion, they told me. I wasn't mute. If I was, I could write. If I was mute and illiterate, I could use sign language, or charades. But the part of my brain that transforms my thoughts into coherent and legible information that could be understood by other human beings was broken. The gap between brain and mouth seemed unbridgeable. I couldn't tell anyone anything. I couldn't have Raye at my side. He would know... He would know what to do. He would know what I was thinking just from my expression. 

My "recovery" was constant humiliation. I wasn't confined to a wheelchair, because it hurt too much to sit up; I was confined to a gurney. They wouldn't let me look in a mirror. I had a call button I could barely press to summon a nurse who I couldn't ask anything of. 

Speech therapy consisted of listening to music and trying to sing along. Just grunting melodically, if that was all I could do. They had a CD of American Classics of the 70's and 80's; I couldn't tell them what music I preferred. It didn't take long to at least grunt along to "Don't Stop Believin'"; I think that song must be written into your DNA after six months in the US. Melodic intonation therapy works on the principle that singing is controlled by a different area of the brain than speaking, so singing words can re-map the brain's ability to speak them. I was practically honking along to Journey, like an idiot, but I kept going. Maybe I'd be able to sing all my words. Maybe I could perform my wedding vows in aria form. It was nice to hope.

The physical therapy, for the beginning, consisted of stripping me naked and putting me in what was essentially a Jacuzzi. Warm water, flowing around with jets. Keep me weightless so it was easier to move my weak muscles and strengthen them again. The moment they dunked me in for the first time, I pissed myself. Too weak and useless to even control my bladder. Too dumb to communicate it had happened and someone should do something about it. I soaked in my own swirling urine for two hours as I tried to return some basic function to my muscles, while a nurse stared through me. And the next day, I got in the tub again. I would have loved to say it was raw determination, my unbreakable willpower, my conviction that no obstacle was too great to return me to my beloved.

But I just had nothing else to do. I couldn't really think too hard about possible paths to the future, nor meditate on the past. They had me on some really powerful painkillers, and time passed in sort of a fog. I didn't care much more than the nurse about my accident in the pool, at the time. I didn't make plans for the future, didn't realize how humiliated I was. Going to therapy was the thing that was done, so it was the thing I did. La la la. Don't stop believin'.

If I wasn't in physical therapy or speech therapy I was in the ICU, laying in bed, accompanied by the rhythmic beeping of EKGs and nothing else. I wasn't even freaking out about Raye. It felt like he was close by, like he just left the room to talk to a nurse. He'd be back soon.

Of course, he was not. After a week at the hospital, just long enough for me to be out of the ICU, they turfed me off to a clinic. Kanagawa Neurological Health Center, I saw on my way in. Rolled me on my gurney, got all my belongings in a plastic bag, draped my chart on the end of the bed -- it was in the name of Tarouko Yamada, Japanese for 'Jane Doe' -- took me in to the clinic to be surrounded by stroke patients twice my age. I never saw easygoing Dr. Mitsumo again. 

My second day at the clinic, a woman named Aoba pulled up her wheelchair and was determined that we would make fast friends. She chatted to me for two hours even though I couldn't form a single word in response. Everything she said was complete gibberish. The words were mostly real words, in the right cadence and intonation, put together in a way that had no meaning. Receptive aphasia, they told me. She could speak language, but she couldn't understand it, not even her own. I let her talk, let her words wash over me. No point being cruel to an old woman worse off than me. Maybe she thought we were some cosmically ordained pair. And it felt nice to have someone act like you're worth talking to. The nurses didn't. 

And while Aoba was talking to me and the old painkillers wore off, the gears started turning again. 

"Hoberdie! We licked at it in the while it didn't ripple yet. Should be." All right. Here I was, in a clinic. Bedridden. Aphasic. What happened to me? My body was covered in scars -- I glimpsed a dark ring of scar tissue around my neck in a passing reflection, maybe they were trying to keep me from seeing it. I had a scar of a gash running down the inside of my right arm, and my right thigh. A thin line running from around my right hip to between my breasts, with two thick sections on it. I could move my arm enough to touch my head and feel my hair was uneven, recently shaved on the left side. A gash near my temple and a vertical scar over my lip, where my teeth might have been fixed. 

"Oh, and the frog. The frog! He was for the running, and in the frog. Let's eat, right?" Whatever had happened to me, the doctors and nurses wouldn't tell me. This was probably an indication that they did not want to tell me what happened. Mitsumo did mention, with pride, I was dead for three minutes. That would narrow it down; if your injuries are caused by gunshot and you're dead for three minutes, then you're also dead for every minute that comes after. So as bad as these scars were, they were not likely my cause of death. I didn't bleed out. EMTs say 'nobody is dead until they are warm and dead', so it was likely I went someplace cold. There were a lot of those in Japan, eleven weeks ago.

"They have it in there, for wagamins. You're very pretty!" I didn't know if that was a compliment, or not, but I smiled. "But it hasn't fallen in yet. Wiggle a little, yes?" I could have fallen into a pool and drowned, but there are few outdoor pools in Tokyo, and I know how to swim besides. An indoor pool would be heated or it wouldn't be usable in January, and wouldn't be filled with debris. I wasn't just hit one time: whatever struck me was in multiple impacts, some of which were dragging. Most of the damage was to my right side, but the left side of my head was hit. The scars don't seem purposeful, like I was stabbed. This suggests an accidental impact of some kind, at some velocity, and I spun a half-revolution before or after hitting my head.

"Come inside in the buttons. Buttons, buttons on head. And she comes too, for pretty head. Going in there, good." The most obvious hypothesis would be a motorcycle crash, but it didn't add up for several reasons. My body had no abrasions I could see, and I'd feel them in the areas I couldn't see. And the doctors clearly had my wallet: they'd played American music for me because most of what was in there was American. And they didn't say anything about my motorcycle, like that it had been impounded or destroyed or recovered, and as far as I could tell it wasn't brought with me. And I didn't have my driver's license on me, or my credit cards, or they would have known who I was. I had brain damage from a head wound, but only a few scars on my face; it didn't seem like I was wearing a helmet and it shattered. I had fallen, maybe off a building, onto a fire escape or a Dumpster with sharp corners? I had slipped, been pushed -- or jumped.

"He would! He was in the hat that he rode, the dear, but there wasn't any. And it was all red!" Of course. No wonder they didn't want to tell me what had happened. They thought I tried to kill myself -- heck, I had killed myself. And maybe if they told me they would remind me. There was only one way to be sure: get my chart. If my suspicions were correct, I'd removed my ID because I was going after Kira, and either I wasn't careful enough or I ran into one of his lackeys, who killed me. And that meant if Raye was still here looking for my trail, he was in danger. On the far side of the room, some grannies were playing mahjong. Could all of them talk? If singing was a different part of the brain than speech, were numbers stored elsewhere than words? Only one way to find THAT out too. I needed my chart, and I needed a phone. But this was Japan, not America; in America they never let you see your chart and I was in the country that did not invent the phrase 'patient-centered care'.

And I was bedridden, only able to move my arms and neck weakly, completely unable to use language. The docs had given me a purple squish ball to crush in my hand and gain back grip strength, I could MAYBE throw it to the end of the bed. I had my engagement ring and no other ornamentation, and there was a swivel lamp above my bed. My only accomplice was arthritic and completely unable to understand words, and judging by her cadence, right now was telling me the plot of a movie she'd seen. The nurse's station was around the corner, where my chart would be. It wouldn't hard for her to get the chart, if she knew that was the plan, but I couldn't tell her what I needed and why. But it wasn't yet hopeless. I couldn't play Charades -- based on my "yes/no" trouble I would make random gestures -- but Charades is about reconstructing a grammatically complete sentence, and pantomime is about reconstructing how things look. 

I let Aoba keep talking to me, and when I did, I held up my ring finger, and I played with the ring. Mmmm, I like this ring! This ring is important to me. (Sorry Raye, but our love gets to be a prop if it means saving you from danger.) I twisted it on my finger, and I admired the diamond in the center. I think Aoba got what I was going for there, though her speech didn't slow down a bit. I could tell by how she was moving her hands and listing to the side that she was at least two digressions deep from her main thread. I took off the ring, and I showed it to her. She took it in her arthritic hands, and she said "Oh, they're rumbling a lot for the little people now, in the oven!" but it was a warm tone so I'll take it. She asked me "Were any of it outside the mountain?" but I just kind of weakly tapped at my mouth to remind her I could not speak, and she got it. She handed it back to me, and I kept it in my hand.

Stage 2 was easy. Hit the call button. The light at the nurse's station corresponding to my bed went on, and the nurse would have to bring my chart with him to see me -- I couldn't tell him any answers he needed! Sure enough, the stocky man on duty came to me with my chart in his hands, an opened three-ring binder with //TAROUKO YAMADA// written on a slip of paper slid into the front. It was pretty thin, but still disturbingly thick considering they had no idea who I was and what medical history I had. I beckoned the nurse closer to me, with my neck -- his nametag was blacked out, and that alone told me that Kira had not been caught yet. 

Aoba was still there, haranguing the poor nurse with what was to her a list of all the ways I'd been mistreated. "Pillot shoes, keep for burning! You always come at the wrong way, and she doesn't soak inside it!" That was good. When the nurse walked close to me and my hand was up, it was REALLY important that she see the moment I dropped my ring into that plastic sleeve on the back of the binder. If she didn't, this was pointless. The nurse came in close, and I pitched my head, tried to get my hand behind it... I couldn't, but he got the idea. He left with my chart and the ring inside it, and came back with a couple of pillows, to help me sit up. Perfect reading position. 

Next step required some waiting. Had to wait for someone else in the room, other than Aoba, to need assistance going to the bathroom. I did not have to wait long. The nurse had to take the blue-haired old woman into the restroom... and then I looked down at my hand. Oh no! Where is my ring? I'm very distressed by not having the ring I established myself as liking. I will reach out and try to get up, but I can't! Aoba saw all of this, and she decided to help the poor young woman. She sauntered off like she owned the place. Around the corner, she would easily find the ring, be unable to extract it from the plastic sleeve...

And come back to me with my chart so I could take it out. 

 

//PATIENT NAME: Tarouko Yamada

PRESIDING PHYSICIAN: Genzo Mitsumo

DATE: March 20, 2007

SOURCE: No outside source of medical history is available.

COMPLAINT: N/A

HISTORY: Ms. Yamada was discovered at the base of a cliff in Kanagawa-ken by an unrelated Tarou Yamada. She appeared to have fallen from the cliff into the water and struck it on the way down; cliff is known spot for suicides as water takes bodies out to ocean when the tide is high. Patient's wrists and neck were bound with cord. Patient had broken both legs and arms in indicated locations, fractured four ribs, fractured skull, and drowned. Paramedics report patient was clinically dead for three minutes before being revived. 

PRESENTATION: Ms. Yamada is a Japanese female, in her mid 20s, 171cm and 46kg. Currency and cards in her wallet suggest American nationality; patient had American and Japanese ID in name of "Shoko Maki", but they were forgeries and no such person exists. She has significant scarring over many areas of her body, most notably a ring of scar tissue around her neck. Observation reveals general muscle weakness and incoordination. Her right knee flexes with great difficulty and pain. Patient is unable to articulate complaints or provide her real name due to an observed inability to use spoken or written language. CT scan confirmed lesion on Broca's area of brain, beneath skull fracture. No associated hemiparesis or hemiplegia has been observed.

DIAGNOSIS: Expressive aphasia due to brain lesion, muscle atrophy and ACL tearing. 

PROGNOSIS: Muscle function will return with physical therapy. Knee movement can be repaired with surgery, but a cane or crutch will be advisable. Dangerously underweight, having lost significant mass during her coma, but this can be treated with diet. Expressive aphasia is the big question mark. She will definitely improve her ability to use language with melodic intonation therapy, but it doesn't mean she will make a full recovery. The patient's mental state is most important, and beyond the expected frustrations of being totally unable to communicate, Ms. Yamada was found after a failed suicide attempt. She is wearing an engagement ring with no wedding band, suggesting an obvious cause. Recommend procuring English-language entertainment media, on the off chance it makes her feel more at home, and that nobody ask her about who gave her the ring.//

 

Suicide. I jumped off the Kanagawa lovers' leap, so the tide would take me away. This was Kira's doing.

It was not inconceivable I would kill myself. I'm honest about my own mental instability. But I know how I'd kill myself: heroin overdose. It was the obvious choice, I thought, so your last seconds would be in doped-up bliss instead of pain and terror. And if I couldn't find any heroin, gunshot to the head, end it quickly. Chucking myself off a cliff? Drowning? Way too drawn out. Painful.

But having my body carried away on the waves would be convenient to someone who wanted me to disappear. If I OD'd on heroin, I'd leave a body somewhere. If I blew my brains out, I'd leave a horrible mess. If I hung myself, I didn't intimately know my surroundings, I couldn't know where my body wouldn't be found. But if I took all the ID out of my pockets and got rid of the motorcycle so the rental couldn't be traced back, them jumped off a known suicide cliff to be whisked away by the current? Nobody would ever find me and if they did nobody knew who I was. I must have known something Kira really, really didn't want coming out. Great. If only I knew what it was. 

That just left another question: Kira can control his victims to some extent. Why wasn't I washed out with the tide? If he had mind control powers, he had me cover every angle, except that I jumped at the wrong time to be dragged away into nothingness. The cord on my wrists and neck was to decapitate me postmortem and chop off my hands so I couldn't be fingerprinted, not that having fingerprints did me any good here. But some unknown character was able to save me. That seems like a rookie move for Kira, or for me. Just jump six hours later or earlier, right? Maybe there was another condition on his control of his victims. Maybe I HAD to do it at the first available opportunity. Maybe he controlled the time someone did it, and he hadn't checked the tide chart. High tide is usually around 6 PM, right? Whatever it was, L would want to know. And Raye would be able to use the help... and know I was alive. 

Aoba had been reading over my shoulder the whole time. She started off like we were looking through a photo album, but as she saw my facial expression, she got the context clue that I was reading something grim and serious. Time to take a calculated risk. Three things had to work right for it to work, but if one of them didn't, I was out nothing. But if it did... The odds that Kira was staff at a neurological health clinic were really, really small. Calling Raye might put him in danger, but identifying myself in a way that just linked me to my family had the smallest risk, as our marriage wasn't in any registry. I looked to Aoba, I held out my thumb and pinky, and I mimed dialing a phone. Then I looked up like I needed help.

The plan had more steps than that, but she got up and came back with a cell phone pretty much instantly. It wasn't the time to look a gift horse in the mouth. I closed my eyes, and I psyched myself up. Okay. This was not a word. I was not going to be using language, and that broken part of my brain can stay asleep. I am using a number. No, just a simple automatic action. It's 1997. I'm at UCLA. It's Sunday, and Mom wants me to call her every week to check in and I'm still doing that for now and I go down to the lobby to make an international call and my index finger makes the same lopsided triangles and stars pattern over the 10-key pad every single time...

I called from Japan to Japan as an international call because that was what I had the best muscle memory for. My finger ached by the end of it, but I can still read, and the phone's display told me I got it right. All I had to do was call and make any sort of vocalization and hang up; Mom would call back, the phone would ring in my bed, the nurse would answer it, and then pieces would be put together. But what if she didn't recognize me from just a grunt over the phone, and assumed it was a wrong number? I hit "Call" and I had to psyche myself up again. Okay. Okay. This one's easy. It's the Beatles. Everyone knows it. You know I need somebody. I can sing one word of that, right? Not just anybody. Not really a word, a short piece of music. You know I need someone. 

"Hello, this is Maiko Misora speaking, who is this?"

I replied with the first word I spoke since the accident: "Heee-eeee-eeeelp."

I heard her receiver, and her, hit the floor.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

Maiko Misora has been talking to her husband about this very subject. How much longer do they want to keep Naomi's picture in the household shrine? They have completed the final funeral rite at her grave, at least the one she had in Japan. Every time Maiko looks at the picture she starts to cry. Born Shinto, marry Catholic, die Buddhist, only her daughter skipped the middle part. They didn't even have a body to cremate. She doesn't know how much longer she can bear that constant reminder of what her baby girl had taken from her, but doesn't know if she can live with herself for taking the picture down.

She is clearly fishing for her husband to do it for her and take it out of her hands. The possibility that their daughter was alive does not cross their minds at all. Her fiance was killed by the most prolific serial killer in human history. Naomi wouldn't take that lying down. And then she vanished without a trace. Maiko and Kenji Misora don't need L's super intelligence to figure out what happened, and to their credit, they are correct in their assessment, just incomplete. 

The phone rings during a long, uncomfortable silence and Maiko tries not to look at the photo of her daughter sitting at the family shrine when she answered. The last thing she expects in the world was her daughter singing the word 'help', and it's understandable she might pass out. This leaves Kenji to pick up the phone and call back, ready to berate whoever had terrified his wife, only to find a confused nurse on the other end. A confused nurse at the bed of an aphasic woman they could not identify but who looked really eager. 

Kenji and Maiko's baby girl is alive. They get to race to the clinic to see her. They get to hold her. They get to see her face again, scarred though it was, and her soulful grey eyes. They get to hear her laugh again. They can't hear her say how she missed them, but they can see her eyes light up. They get to see her showing her ring, anxiously gesturing, trying to ask them where Raye was.

They get to tell her that Raye Penber has already been buried in Quantico National Cemetery with the other 11 FBI agents, next to an empty grave marked with her headstone.

They get to see her joy turn to anguished horror. They get to see her break down and cry, great ugly heaving sobs. They get to see her try to throw a pillow but be too weak for it, too weak even to flip herself over.

They get to tell her that her fiance died a hero, protecting his country and theirs. 

It doesn't help very much.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

My medical treatment could change, my care could improve, now that they knew who I was and I could force out a word occasionally. And it didn't matter because Raye was dead.

The enormity of it hadn't hit me until Dad told me he was dead. Then it all came crashing down on me like a tidal wave. I was brain-damaged for life, my fiance was dead. My body and soul had been violated and my thoughts twisted to suicide against my will. Everything I wanted and everything I was was overridden because someone decided they should be and there was nothing I could do about it. There wasn't a word for the kind of rape I had experienced. The man who could get me through it was dead because a psychopath decided he should be dead and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Nothing mattered. How could anything matter when anything can be taken on an unstoppable, immutable whim?

They got me the music I liked. Tried to bring me back again to UCLA. It's '97, I want to be as American as possible, and ska is just the shit, punk is the cool new music for the American underground. For the first time in my life I'm hanging out with cool people and they don't even give a shit about my accent, but I'm secretly going to speech therapy on the weekends just to sound more American because I love this place and I think everyone around me is expressing their love of it too. I want to find a way to wear a piano-key necktie as the ribbon on a sailor fuku, and I'm trying out flannels and studs and vests before I've even settled on my personal style of black jacket and blue jeans. I'm blasting Ixnay on the Hombre and Turn the Radio Off on my Walkman to and from class, thinking about Bob Burnquist grinding his skateboard upside down. The last point in time when the world was my oyster, everything was open to me, and I can choose any of the thousands of paths before me. Except no it isn't and no I can't. It's 2007. I majored in criminal justice, I enrolled in the FBI in a post 9/11 patriotic fervor, I met a wonderful man named Raye Penber, we decided to start a family, and Kira snatched him away from me before he smote me down and robbed me of language. Somebody hates me. I hate somebody too.

I could get one, maybe two words out now. For some reason, it was worse than zero. At zero, I was mute. At two, I had so much I wanted to say, so much I needed to, and the river was dammed after a second. Any time I tried to speak ended in me weeping as the words fled away from my useless, worthless brain. It should be easy! Why isn't it easy? They guessed I might do better writing than with speaking. But I couldn't write, not until I squished the squish ball enough to be able to hold a novelty pencil the size of my forearm. At that point, I guess I was better. I could write, giant, shaky and misspelled words, with what they called "telegraphed speech." Like a telegraph in an old-timey show. Everything but the most crucial content words cut out. And sometimes in random order. If that was too much, I could always draw a picture. Not that it mattered. How do you draw nihilistic anguish at the inescapable fragility of everything that can be loved? How do you draw a spectre taking your soul because he felt like it? None of it mattered. Raye was dead. So was I.

Every step of being a functional human being has to be won back. I needed to learn to sit up in a wheelchair once again. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

Hold my arms level to my head for ten seconds. Twenty. Above my head. You're making amazing progress, Naomi! It didn't matter. Raye was dead.

Hold myself up on the parallel bars to walk. Take a step. Two. Collapse. Don't get discouraged, Naomi! You'll get it eventually! It didn't matter. I was already dead.

Sing along with the music, Naomi! We don't know what it is, but it sure sounds energetic! You remember it, don't you? Back off your rules, back off your jive, 'cause I'm sick of not living to stay alive! I was. It didn't matter either way. 

Sit in the pool, Naomi! Work against the resistance of the water! I thought about being helpless. I thought about soaking in my own urine. It didn't matter. How could I be more degraded than I already was?

Mom and Dad visited. Their support would be crucial to my recovery. Their daughter was distant, depressive, and brain damaged, and their presence did nothing but make them sad. Their visits got shorter and shorter. It didn't matter. I'd die alone when someone decided I would. Kira murdered Raye and he hollowed me out like a jack o' lantern. He'd do as he pleased.

Aoba could tell how despondent I was. She tried reading to me, like I assume her grandkids would have enjoyed. Her stories were gibberish, recited from medical reference books. She was trying as hard as she possibly could to connect to another human being, to balm the pain I was in. I didn't care, and I didn't bother pretending to care. She stopped trying. It didn't matter. 

None of it mattered.

I cried every time I tried to talk and failed. I cried every time I thought about Raye. All the things he said to me I would never hear again. All the things he did for me I would never see again. All the ways he made me feel I would never feel again. I couldn't even articulate why I was weeping, but they could guess. They said I would probably never recover my memories of his death. I'd give anything to go back to that last moment I remembered, when he was alive. No, I'd take the atrophy and brain damage, just to have him walk in and say he was here, he was alive, he was faking his own death to avoid Kira but now he was here and he was here for me and everything would be okay. He wasn't going to do that. Nothing mattered. 

I wasn't sure why I didn't kill myself. Everything had been taken from me. Spite, I guess? Kira wanted me to commit suicide, so no matter how grinding and hopeless my existence, killing myself would be giving him something he wanted. Nobody got to have what they wanted, not me and not him. Or maybe I was just too powerless to take my own life, whatever dark power he replaced my soul with robbed me of any sense of agency. Powerlessness was the only rule of the world. And it didn't matter either way.

It went on like this for weeks.

I had a visitor, they informed me. Wasn't Mom and Dad. I was loaded into my wheelchair and taken to the lobby, where a white man was sitting in a dark suit, holding a briefcase, waited for me. His face was in shadow when he smiled at me, and his teeth were so pearly white they were illuminated. He took my wheelchair by the handles, and he dropped a yellow legal pad and the giant novelty pencil in my lap. 

There was a small wooded area out behind the clinic, for patients to take walks in. At the dead center, there were exactly enough trees and bushes not to see the fence enclosing the clinic grounds. He didn't speak a word as he wheeled me there, and I didn't say anything. If he was here to kill me then I would die and nothing I said or did mattered.

He wheeled me to the center of the area. Parked me next to a bench, sat next to me. It was twilight, and the lights hadn't yet kicked on. If you ignored the noises of traffic, it was like we were in a forest. Nobody was around. 

"The guy who saved you was Kazuki Takihito," he said, in English. "The one who pulled you out of the water. You probably don't remember him. He convinced himself you were sending him coded signals of love, or at least he could catch you on the rebound." He pulled his briefcase into his lap before pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket. "I gather you don't remember your conversation because of the head trauma. Same reason you have that, the whaddyacallit, the aphasia. There was no possible way you could have known he'd be worried about you and follow you from your hotel room to your suicide spot. If he didn't, then you would have been washed away and nobody would ever find you. He pulled this note from your pocket when the paramedics were on their way. I can't read Japanese, but it's obvious what it was." He handed it over, and with shaky hands, I read it. The last fluent thing my hands ever wrote.

//I DO NOT SHUDDER TO TAKE THE COLD AND FATAL CUP, FROM WHICH I SHALL DRINK THE DRAUGHT OF DEATH. YOUR HAND PRESENTS IT TO ME, AND I DO NOT TREMBLE. ALL, ALL IS NOW CONCLUDED: THE WISHES AND THE HOPES OF MY EXISTENCE ARE FULFILLED. WITH COLD, UNFLINCHING HAND I KNOCK AT THE BRAZEN PORTALS OF DEATH. OH, THAT I HAD ENJOYED THE BLISS OF DYING FOR YOU!

\-- SHOKO MAKI//

Anger filled me, radiating out from the back of my neck. If there was any doubt, now it was gone. I had a suicide note so I wouldn't be investigated as a homicide, but I signed it as my alias so I wouldn't be traced back to my real identity. The note itself was a quote from "The Sorrows Of Young Werther" by Goethe, a story that famously inspired a string of copycat suicides all over Europe. I memorized bits of it for class, the most melodramatic thing I had ever heard, and I read it aloud in William Shatner's bizarre cadence. The note didn't even end at a sensible place, but the next sentence had someone's name in it. Anyone who knew me at all would instantly know this note was fake and my death was a homicide.

"Kazuki got spooked by all the paramedics and cops, or else he would have visited you at the hospital, and they could have figured you out from what hotel room he saw you in," the man said. "He was hell to track down." Then he looked over to me like he realized he'd been rude and offered his hand. "Agent Graves. It's nice to finally meet you, Ms. Misora."

I met his handshake with my trembling, weak hand. He didn't squeeze too hard. "Uh... Hi." What was the purpose of our little meeting, anyway? "Ah... uhhhh, Want?"

"I really would have liked to wait for you to recover more fully, Ms. Misora." he said, looking off into the little Potemkin forest. "But I don't come out to Asia all that often, so I have to get as many people as I can in one go." It wasn't an answer to my question, but it wasn't much of a question. "The FBI sure had a lot to say about you. Glowing reviews. Once you cracked the LABB case, word around the office was that you were the best agent they'd had in decades. Equally capable in the field and in the office. Analytical mind. Cool head. Able to put up with L without going insane. Any insubordination problems were well worth dealing with." 

I didn't crack the LABB case. Nobody did. It was an utterly meaningless waste of time and life. I slowly scrawled a response in giant letters on the legal pad. //FBI YOU?// He shook his head with a little chuckle. //NOT GOD NEMORE//.

It took him a couple seconds to decipher me. "You're not any more. Okay. You and Raye wanted to start a family together, and if the both of you were FBI agents, you could never have the stability you needed. Raye insisted that you stay out of danger and you went along because you loved him. The FBI tried to convince you to come back but you loved Raye more than you loved your job."

//STILL. CARE?// There was a word there. A word that made it a question. A word I'd never be capable of using.

"Raye Penber was sent to Tokyo to die."

I yelped in wordless, incoherent surprise.

"The Kira case was a nightmare. A murderer who can kill from any distance, with no more effort than it takes to breathe, simply by knowing your name? It shouldn't even be possible. L was heading the investigation, but he still required feet on the ground, and the assignment was a deathtrap for any law enforcement official. Deputy Director of the NPA Kitamura Koreyoshi balked at the prospect of walking his men into that meat grinder, so he said in an interoffice E-mail, 'let's see if we can convince those American cowboys to send someone over to die in our places.' He put a smiley face on the end and then he proceeded to do just that."

//BAD.//

"It's appalling and racist. What's really bad is the fact that he and the FBI's Deputy Director of Human Resources, Walter Sorenson, would go on to compile a list of FBI agents eligible for the assignment that they either would not mind seeing dead, or actively wanted killed. They would send these agents to Japan so they could claim they were devoting their full resources to the Kira case, letting the Japanese hide behind a human shield, and getting rid of people they wanted to be rid of. Five of them were whistleblowers. Three had taken bribes themselves without sharing the wealth. Two had suspected ties to the Triads, but nothing that could be substantiated. One of them had sex with Sorenson's wife. And one of them was your husband, Raye Penber."

//DRTY NOT.//

"He wasn't a whistleblower either, as I understand it, because he hadn't encountered anything to blow a whistle on. No, they wanted Raye Penber dead to get at you. Specifically, if he died, you'd have nothing holding you down to a home life and would be free to go back on the force. If your husband-to-be was killed by a criminal, why, you might swear vengeance against crime and re-dedicate yourself to law enforcement. Then the FBI could have one of its own 'in' with L that wasn't a total basket case or a child, like the people they usually have on deck. They didn't expect that you'd go with him to introduce him to your parents, but it was too late to stop the assignment, and they ended up throwing you to Kira as well."

This was appalling. Unthinkable. //NOT BLIEVE.//

"Inside this briefcase are audiotapes, files, originals and photocopies of interoffice memos, and locations of these E-mails on the NPA's mailserver that prove everything I have just said is true." He slid it over into my lap. "You will also find a pistol, one spare magazine, your holster, and one hundred utterly untraceable bullets. Do you recall the short time when you worked on the Julio Allero task force in Palo Alto?"

//YES.// Julio Allero killed a liquor store owner in a botched heist, was convicted, imprisoned, then escaped and crossed a state line before he killed three more people. The FBI assembled a task force, but it was inexplicably dissolved as soon as we started working the scene of the first shooting. //FBI PORTCT?//

"No. Julio was framed for the murder by his then-girlfriend and the crooked cop she was cheating on him with, and the local police didn't care enough to see through the deception. When he broke out of prison, I gave him one of these briefcases, and proof of who had framed him. And as soon as you ran the ballistics from his ex-girlfriend's trailer, the investigation ended. Because as long as he was using that pistol with that ammo, he was above the law." He tapped the briefcase and flipped it open, I noticed the combination was the day me and Raye were going to be married. June 18, 2007. A blushing June bride. 

The briefcase had what he said, several manila folders, microcassettes, loose pieces of paper, a bundled-up shoulder holster, a semi-automatic 1911 pistol, and two boxes of bullets from a manufacturer I'd never heard of. "And while you are using that pistol, Naomi, you will be above the law. You will face no legal consequences for any action you perform with that weapon in Japan, the United States, Germany, or South Korea. If arrested, you will be released and your weapon returned. You have carte blanche." He paused, then added something he clearly thought didn't fit with the rest of his speech. "Theoretically you'd be above the law in Iraq and Afghanistan as well, any nation the United States has directly rebuilt, but there's not much law to be above in those places."

//WANT KILL FR?//

"No. I don't want you to kill anyone. I am giving you a tool for your own independent use; you can do with it as you like. Kill them with it. Carry it as your sidearm for personal defense. Put it to your temple and finish the job Kira started. Throw it away if you want, it doesn't matter to me." 

//NOT CRRY JPN// Can't carry a firearm in Japan. Like that was my only objection.

He pointed at one of the inside pockets. "I am aware that Japan, Germany and South Korea have gun ownership laws far more restrictive than the US, but I said you will face no legal consequence." I pulled out two little laminated cards with my picture on them, one said 'Naomi Misora' and one said 'Shoko Maki'. Both said 'Special Dispensation for Firearms Possession,' had a very long serial number and the signature of someone I guess was in the NPA.

//GIVE? CARE?//

"You were betrayed, Naomi. You and Raye were betrayed. And everyone else who these men betrayed is dead, they can cover up their crimes. If you go to the media you know they will quash the story. They'll say you hit your head and you're making up crazy delusions. Kitamura Koreyoshi and Walter Sorenson killed Raye and nearly killed you as surely as Kira did, and they did it to manipulate your trust. I didn't give you this because I want you to kill them. But the fact that the man you loved was taken away from you like that is gnawing away at your insides right now, isn't it? Someone just gave you a chance to do something about it. Going to take it?"

//GOOD EVDNEC. GO AUTHORTY?//

He said nothing, but he smiled. His teeth were so white they made the rest of his face seem pitch black by comparison.

//NOT KL KIRA.// Then I added //CAN// when I realized his confusion.

He sighed, leaned back and scratched his face. "This won't help let you kill Kira, no." And then he looked sad, sad like a mysterious man handing out untraceable guns shouldn't be. "This is what I do, Naomi. I have these briefcases, I fill them with evidence, I have these guns. I go around, I give them to people. People who got a raw deal, and few got it rawer than you. People who were betrayed. People who need a chance to take the power back. I usually do it in America; like I said, I don't come to Asia very often, and Germany even less. It's... it's complicated for me over there. I could kill a lot of these people I give out dossiers on, but what would be the point? I'm not doing it for their sake, I'm doing it for the people like you." He looked off in contemplation. "I've been here a couple weeks. After you and this yakuza kid, I head out to Seoul. The past ten briefcases I've given out, one of them was a dossier on someone who died of a medically inexplicable heart attack, a corrupt prosecutor named Takamoto Nareo. And three of the people who'd been wronged, who needed a chance at revenge, met the same fate. The people who notify me of these things must use a lot of the same channels."

//KIRA.// I already wrote it, so I underlined it for emphasis. 

"Two nights ago," he continued, "Sakura TV broadcast some tapes from Kira. Predicting more deaths at specific times. Then he killed a newscaster for speaking out against him, even though he didn't do anything wrong, because he's speaking out against making a better world or some horseshit, my Japanese isn't that good when people talk fast." He sneered. "Kira is a piece of shit kid who thinks he can make the world a better place by killing everyone who hurts his feelings," he said. "Some prick that thinks he's the spirit of justice. I don't care about justice, Naomi. Justice is something big, bigger than anyone has a right to control. Justice asks us to trust it, and repays that trust with betrayal. I want revenge. Few things would make me happier than seeing you took that gun and you splattered Kira's brains on the pavement. Or you just pistol-whipped his face into hamburger." He was grinning again. I think I was too. 

He caught himself. "L has a big task force on him now, here. If I found you, it won't be long before L does too. I think he's gonna want to talk to you. L's employers and I... we don't really see eye to eye. Not any more. But I don't hold that against the guy. He asks you something, you go ahead and answer."

He looked at me while I stared at the open case. He said the files in here contained all the proof I need to know that Koreyoshi and Sorenson sent my husband to his death, but I couldn't bear to open them. I just kept looking at the gun. I never understood what happened in the the Julio Allero case. He was on the run but we were on his tail. After the second shooting we were doing a ballistics analysis, the gun was some rare caliber we hadn't seen before and if we could trace back to where he bought it we could find out who was giving him funds and a place to sleep. The report came back. The bullets were 8.47mm, a caliber none of us had ever heard of before and we wondered how they even made the distinction from a standard 9mm after the bullet had been fired, and the task force was disbanded. Just like that, no further attempt was made to capture him. Not even when he killed again. I think he eventually got nicked in Arizona for robbing another liquor store. He had a .38 that time, never stood trial for the murders, and the FBI took no part in his prosecution.

I picked up one of the bullets and rolled it between my fingertips. I used to carry a nine-millimeter, and I thought this looked slightly thinner than the rounds I used. Maybe .53 millimeters thinner. Graves had just dropped these in my lap and said 'Here's a free pass to murder, go nuts'. I should have thrown it away, refused it, but I couldn't. I held up the holster, and he helped me slide into it. It fit me perfectly.

I held the gun in my left hand, wavering it back and forth slightly. It wasn't simply heavy, it was weighty. I didn't often carry my gun before. The few times I did, I'd been very glad to do so, because I was usually walking into a high-risk situation with multiple armed suspects, and I had to defend myself. The gun was heavier and heavier in my weak hand, and I couldn't holster it. I lowered it back into the case, and Graves helped take the holster off. I felt unbalanced already.

//HAEY. NOT USE.// I scrawled. Then I made a picture of a trapezoid with a ring on top, and speed lines, the universal symbol of falling heavy object.

"I'll tell you what," Graves said. "You clearly need to finish your recovery, miss Misora. Won't do to keep this in a hospital. What do you say I take this to your parents' place. I lock it, I tell them it's yours, I tell them to keep it in your room. You get well enough... you come and pick it up. Or you don't." I should have said no. It was crazy, and it was evil. I couldn't be a murderer. Something as small as a gun couldn't make me feel safe. Something real and tangible wasn't enough to take back the all-encompassing power that had been stripped from me. I had already written their address twice, recognizing that I wasn't writing it completely and legibly enough for him to follow. I did the third time in Japanese, so he could get the complete version from the nurse.

He nodded. "If you see L, tell him... wait, what the hell am I saying, I'm a jackass. Give me a sheet there." He pulled off a sheet of yellow legal pad, dashed out a note, and slipped it into an interior pocket of the case. "Give that to him. He will know what it means." He closed the briefcase and spun the wheels of the combination lock. In silence, he stood up, wheeled me back inside, and put me back in the custody of the nurses of the Neurological Health Center. Then he was going to go to my parents' house, and he was going to put that case in my bedroom. That case full of incontrovertible evidence of who betrayed Raye and myself. That case that showed me who manipulated me to throw my life away. That case with the gun that I could carry and nobody else. That case with the gun I could do anything I want with and the law couldn't stop me.

I paged the nurse. I wanted into the physical therapy room.

Hold the parallel bars. Learn to walk. One step. Two. Three. Four. It's okay Naomi! You don't need to push yourself so hard!

One step. Two. Three. Four. Five. Whoa, slow down, what's this rush all of a sudden?

Put on the music. I want to sing while I walk. Speech therapy and physical therapy together means I recover twice as fast.

Because I'm sick of not living to stay alive.

Give me the big blue rubber ball to roll on. Then leave me alone. I'm not asking a lot. 

I just don't wanna be controlled.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

I felt like I was in a really bad kung fu movie. "I have mastered the water tub! The parallel bars! The giant rubber inflatable ball! The flash cards! The giant pencil! And the purple squish ball! Now I demand the rite of the live-with-my-parents belt!" 

I'd gained back most of my weight, up to 58 kg. Most of the function in my hands and limbs was back, though I walked with a pair of those crutches that attached to your biceps. My speech was slightly better, and my writing improved. I was up to using a normal pen, and a pocket-sized notepad. I had even learned a trick that if I focused very hard, and I jammed my tongue in between my lip and my upper teeth, I could trick my brain into thinking that nodding and shaking my head *slowly* were new gestures, not language, and I could use them accurately. I got new clothes, good ones, instead of the old-lady sweats they had me in. My old leather jacket smelled like brine, so I got a new one. I wore it all the time to hide my scars. I got kick-ass boots, and they zipped up with big easy to grab rings on the zippers but still looked stylish and not like remedial physical therapy fashion. 

I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I made way more progress in this month than in the previous one. Because I had a goal. An end in mind. I needed to get into my room. I needed to get that briefcase. I needed to be a person who could use what was inside it. When they released me for outpatient services in the custody of my parents, the first thing was kiss Aoba on the forehead and wave her goodbye, because she was a nice old lady. The second was walk out of there under my own power, even though I had crutches and Dad was right beside me waiting for me to fall. The third thing I did was have dinner with my parents, and watch a movie in the family room. But after all that, I put on the holster, I put on the gun, I put on the jacket, I walked out to the park all by myself, and I fired two rounds into the pavement before I dropped the gun, in full view of a patrol officer who arrested me immediately.

Two hours and forty minutes later, they gave it back to me, apologized, and drove me back to the park. 98 bullets left. I wasn't strong enough to use the gun yet. But it worked as advertised. Now all I had to do was read the dossier of evidence.

I was having trouble with that. Nothing like moving back in with your parents to bring back the sense of shame. All of my pride over my accomplishments, sure enough, was changing back to shame over not being able to do what normal people could. I could see it in Mom's eyes too, her frustration at trying to communicate. She was never the best communicator to begin with. We tried, I guess.

So I hadn't read the files. I was having doubts. Maybe I shouldn't. They would just make me angry, after all. I had the gun, didn't I? That would make me safe. I would feel safe because I could defend myself. Reading the files would make me angry. I'd think about Raye dying again instead of focusing my reminiscing on Raye being happy. Remember Santa Monica Beach? The guy who called it "water ice"? Maybe if I read the files I'd do something bad I had no right to do. I didn’t read them. But I didn't throw them out, either.

I was in my room, with the laptop the hospital gave me. In between speech therapy sessions, they loaded up a little program that showed me a picture of something, and I'd have to say what it was, or it would say something and I'd have to repeat it. I'm glad I did it alone, because it felt embarrassing to stumble my way through it, I didn't want anyone to watch.

The program showed me an image of a dog, so I said "Dog."

It showed me a picture of a motorcycle, so I said "M... Muh... uhhh.... cy, uh, cy... motor, uh, bike. Cycle! Motor cycle." 

It showed me a picture of a Gothic-font "L" on a white background, so I said "Huh?"

A computer-scrambled voice, one I'd heard before, emerged from the laptop speakers. "Am I speaking to Naomi Misora?"

I nodded. Then I slowly said "Y-yes." 

"Due to your difficulty speaking, miss Misora, please type your responses." The image hitched as something else drew focus, the remote session hit alt-tab a few times. I don't know what surprised me more, that L's secret backdoor message was routed through AOL Instant Messenger, or that I was 'TheLPlane' speaking to 'TheLMothership'. "I am currently heading a special investigative force into Kira. I realize that this is a difficult period for you. Raye's death was a tragedy, and I know he is greatly missed. But I hope that if you help us, we may be able to afford you some closure, and now that you are no longer an inpatient I want to move as quickly as we can."

Yeah. Yeah he was greatly missed. But L wouldn't take the blame for making me think of him. //KNOW NEED?//

"First? I want to know the last thing Raye said to you about the case."

I paused. It was... It was that Kira could control his victims. That's how I knew that at first, even though my own experience proved it. But how did we figure that out? //KIRA CONTROL PERSON. SOMEONE DIE. NOT KNOW.//

"Hmm. We've had some other evidence of that ability, and I suppose you do as well. You believe you were manipulated into committing suicide. I agree with you. What led you to come to this conclusion?"

I got the feeling he'd be impossible to read even if he wasn't speaking through a voice scrambler. //WAY KILL I. LEAVE NOTE. NOT FEEL. HELP KIRA.// That wasn't it, was it? I wished I could lay out everything, the entire chain of reasoning, but typing this was hard enough. //KIRA CONTROL BAD. NOT INFO ALL. JUMP TIME BAD. HIDDEN SAVE.//

"Interesting. Interesting." I could hear him musing on the other end. "He tried to kill you. Either he failed, or he succeeded and did not know his work would be undone by paramedics. This failure was due to something you, his victim, could not have foreseen. Do I understand you correctly that you left a note that does not match your sincere feelings?"

//YES. QUOTE.// It took forever to type. I guess the World's Greatest Detective had nothing better to do. No, he was probably multitasking with his microphone muted. //QUOTE STUPID. MOCK.//

"You mocked people for knowing the quote? No? You knew the quote to mock it. You knew it because you mocked it." Was his microphone muted while he paused? Through the voice scrambler I couldn't tell, there was tape hiss anyway. "Your suicide note contained a quotation you had memorized, but only for purposes of mockery." Even the world's greatest detective had trouble talking to me. "This is important. Do you have any plans later today?"

It was 11. I alt-tabbed out to the calendar program, and copied my entry for today in the chat. //PHYSICAL THERAPY 4 PM//

"So if I asked you to come over here and join the Kira Special Investigative Team now, would you cancel or would you have to leave here at 3:30? Watari's going to order pizza and he needs to know how many people to order for."

I was taken aback. Nobody ever accused L of having tact, but why would he want me? He was a super-genius on the caliber of Lex Luthor or that guy from the 'Fantastic Four', the kind of brain you only find in comic books. He sat around all day doing idiotic logic puzzles that never intersected with real police work. Even when I 'worked with him', I didn't work with him. What could he possibly want with a broken person who spoke like a cavewoman? //CAN LATE. WANT I???//

"Because you're Kira's only living victim. You have observed things nobody else has had a chance to. My assistant Watari is going to come by in an hour, please pack a few changes of clothes. Tell your parents that... what am I saying," //MR. AND MRS. MISORA: YOUR DAUGHTER IS ASSISTING L IN AN IMPORTANT INVESTIGATION. MY ASSISTANT WILL CONTACT YOU IF YOUR HELP IS NEEDED. YOUR COOPERATION IS VERY MUCH APPRECIATED, AND YOUR TIME WILL BE COMPENSATED.//

They took the news pretty well. I think they didn't know how else to take it. Mom packed me a bento. When I got in the car with Watari, I brought my crutches, my lunchbox, my black messenger bag, my purple squishy ball, my briefcase, and above all else my gun.

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

Everything was in place. Of course, things would have been so much easier if they'd captured Misa ten minutes later and I could have got L's name right then... or if Misa didn't leave her hair on the goddamn envelope she mailed the Kira tapes in... but it happened and I adapted to it. Misa had revoked her ownership of the Death Note. My old Death Note I got from Ryuk was prepared and on its way to its new home. Misa's old note she got from Rem was buried in a secure location. My emergency page was safely loaded in the secret compartment in my watch, and my instructions to Ryuk had been set. Now all I had to do was put on my best 'scared of myself' face and confess that deep down I was afraid I could subconsciously be Kira, and of course I could neee-eeever live with myself if it were true, so I was voluntarily placing myself in custody.

I couldn't really practice my speech in the bathroom mirror, someone could hear, but I didn't need to. Everyone was so gullible I almost felt sorry for them. Almost. So they'd lock me up on suspicion of being Kira, and of course it would just prove I wasn't. Because after let's say a week, I'd 'get rid of it' and I wouldn't be Kira any more. And there would be a new Kira going around. If everything went according to plan, me and Misa's names would be cleared, L would be dead, and I'd be free to remake the world as I pleased. If anything went wrong, I'd expose myself to no criminal liability, no physical danger, I'd be a genius with an idol singer in my pocket with no idea he was missing anything. That's not as good as the power to shape a new, better world, but as things go it's still a pretty damn good life to have. 

Ryuk the shinigami was floating along a little ahead of me, bopping back and forth, humming the jauntiest funeral dirge I'd ever heard. He'd wolfed down a bag of apples in the bathroom of the subway because he thought it'd be his last chance to get some for a while, and I think he was experiencing quite a buzz. I came to L's room, my 'scared and concerned' face already up, Ryuk drifted through like the door wasn't even there. When I opened the door, I heard him burst into harsh, gravelly laughter.

"Oh, Light," said Ryuzaki from his weird tiptoe perch in his high-back chair. A metal crutch was propped against the seat next to him and I saw a black-sleeved arm on the armrest. "I'm glad you could come in on short notice. I want you to meet someone."

"Yes, Ryuzaki, I think we have to talk about something..."

"Oh, Light, Light," Ryuk said, trying to get back his composure. "You're gonna want to have the Shinigami Eyes for this one. It's really, really funny."

"Light, I'd like you to meet the newest member of the Kira Special Investigative Team, Naomi Misora." The woman in the chair next to him leaned around to look at me, wincing slightly, and gave me a meek little wave with a purple ball in her palm. She looked a little different than I remembered, face was a little off, scars on her lip, temple, the underside of her wrists, and a big scar around her neck, but it was her. I am amazed with myself that I didn't cry out, panic, or let something slip at this point, because I knew my shit was well and truly wrecked. 

Naomi Misora was the woman who might have had enough clues to let the police know that I was Kira. Naomi Misora was the woman who I most DEFINITELY told 'By the way, I'm Kira' seconds before the Death Note sent her off to kill herself. There was no way she wasn't going to recognize the person that killed her husband. I wasn't going to leave this room alive unless I played every single thing in exactly the right way. Couldn't act surprised to see her, couldn't act like I knew she was going to say anything. Had to be surprised when she said I was Kira, but not too surprised. Slightly insulted, but only slightly, and mostly supportive and nurturing 'oh look at the poor lady she's mad with grief.'

"Naomi, this is Light Yagami, Chief Yagami's son," Ryuzaki continued. "Miss Misora used to be with the FBI... and she is also, as far as we can tell, Kira's only still-living victim." She was the only still-living victim as far as Kira knew, too! This shouldn't have been possible. She went off to kill herself on January 1st, at 1:45... and when someone found her in a coma, barely hanging on to life, she should have died of a cerebral aneurysm twenty-one days later without ever waking up. By all rights she should have been dead twice, and if someone had to live through the Death Note why did it have to be the one I told, to her face, that he was Kira?

"Oh, come on. I'll give you a hint, Light," Ryuk chuckled. "You got her name right... and if I did my math right, you had her time of death too."

What the hell was Ryuk talking about? Was she a ghost, another shinigami? No, that wasn't possible, Ryuzaki was talking to her, and even to see her I would have had to touch her Death Note. She opened her mouth and she stammered for the longest three seconds of my entire life before saying "...Hello, uhh... Light."

"Hello, miss Misora." I said with an easy, warm smile. I think if anybody had given me the slightest poke I would have screamed like a wild ape and torn at my own hair, but nobody did. She looked at me for a few more seconds, smiled meekly, and then turned back to the screen. She didn't shout at me. Didn't say 'You son of a bitch you killed my husband' or throw things at me or try to beat me to death with a metal cane. She turned away and looked back at the screen of Misa, tied up in a straightjacket and blindfold. 

Of course. The cane, the scars, the therapy ball, the HOSPITAL stay for God's sake. She'd hit her head trying to kill herself and she didn't remember my confession. That's why she didn't react when she saw me. That's why I walked up here in the first place and I didn't get shot in the head by a police sniper on the way. She didn't know I was Kira. It didn't feel good to be saved by blind luck, but it felt a hell of a lot better than dying to it.

"So, you've really survived an attack by Kira?" I sounded impressed, and in some small way I guess I kinda was. "What happened?"

Ryuk had floated over to where the two were sitting and was swirling his finger around in the space above Naomi's head. "I'm telling you Light, something up here you're really, really going to appreciate."

"Miss Misora's fiance was one of the FBI investigators who came to Japan to investigate the Kira murders, and she followed him so they could meet her parents," Ryuzaki said. "Our current theory is that Kira used his ability to control those he kills and forced her to attempt suicide when he realized he didn't get all the FBI agents in one swipe. She left a contentious suicide note and attempted to make it impossible to find or identify her, after all. Or, it could have been another experiment of how far his capabilities go. She can't remember how it happened because of the head trauma." She didn't say anything, letting him talk for her completely.

"Well, if she can't recall it, do we know it was even Kira at all?" She turned up to look at me with an expression that told me that line of conversation was headed nowhere.

"Mmm, nothing is ever certain. But I will say there is a good chance."

I didn't have to see into Ryuzaki's eyes to know what he was thinking, and I think I got what Ryuk was talking about at the same time. I decided to draw it out of Ryuzaki, make sure we were on the same track, that I wasn't coming up with anything too far from what he knew, and that it looked like every idea was his. "Then, do you really think it's safe for you to be here? I mean, Kira has your name and he's shown he wants to kill you. Wouldn't it be safer if you went back home?"

She passed me a small sheet of notepaper. //SAFE NOT -> KIRA DEAD THEN.//

Ryuzaki fidgeted with his toes while I read, muttered "Miss Misora has to communicate mostly in writing, as a side effect of the injuries, it's called..." He paused to search for the word, "...expressive aphasia. Her notes are characterized by a succinctness called 'telegraphed speech'. And sometimes you have to wait for other people to finish before you know what she said," as he waited for me to pass him the note. He read it, pinched between his thumb and forefinger hanging right in front of his face, nodded, and laid it on a pile of similar papers on the table by his microphone. "I don't believe she is in any more danger here than in the US. In fact, I think I'm in more danger than she is."

"How?" Other than the fact that I'm Kira and I am going to kill you, that is.

"Because there are a great many ways for her to die in a hospital and none of them happened. The hospital didn't understand the need for secrecy and an administrator asked about her false identity, with her picture, on an unsecured message board for law enforcement agents, asking who she was. We know that in the past, criminals whose names and mugshots were placed on that website were killed by Kira. Kira, knowing her real name and seeing her face, could easily have her die again by untraceable medical error. So... it could mean that Kira no longer reads that website. But if Kira still did, he would certainly have a reason to kill her again. That could indicate that Kira's powers only work once." He chewed his thumb. "Maybe a five percent probability. But better than nothing."

I did read that website, and I read that posting, and I wrote her name in the Death Note again, but that seemed to do a hell of a lot less than the first time. The Death Note might only work once, Ryuk said he hasn't told me all the rules and doesn't know them all himself. And it makes a certain kind of sense to say that if it's 'killed' someone once, it won't do it again. 

I certainly couldn't go ahead with my plan to discard the Death Note while she was still around. I'm not a neurologist, and though I am aware that amnesia is not as simple as they show it on TV, I have to admit I don't know off the top of my head if she might be able to get her memories back. If it turns out the answer was 'yes', it would do me no good to voluntarily imprison myself and set up evidence of another Kira if one of the investigation members remembered me confessing to her right before I killed her. Judging by that note, if the team didn't believe her recollection of events, she might kill me herself. She was weak, but it didn't matter when she had a gun under her armpit. So, I needed a new thing that I came up here to talk to L about, and put off this part of the plan. I figured I may as well steer L away from the truth and appear to be working with him at the same time, I went to backup story-slash-revelation number 3. 

"That's actually what I came here to talk to you about, L. Do you know of a man named... what was it... Svyatoslav, Innokentiy... Shevchenko?"

"Yes, a member of the Russian Mafia who worked in Japan for some time. A vicious one, as I recall. Frequently resorts to jury tampering and witness intimidation so no legal charges will stick."

"Right. He's one of the most vicious criminals there is, but I looked it up, and apparently he's never had so much as the sniffles. Why wouldn't Kira have gone after him first? He didn't get criminals whose names were spelled incorrectly at first, but then it's obvious he went back to get them." They didn't know that I did go after him first, but I misspelled it four times while I was trying, and one of the rules is that once someone's name has been misspelled four times in the Death Note they can't be killed by one. In my defense, I don't read or write Russian and his name is incredibly hard to transliterate. "Kira hasn't shown that he's on the Russian Mob's side. I was thinking, maybe he didn't get skipped over, maybe whatever Kira does won't work on him."

"Yes, I considered that. We don't know how Kira's abilities work, so, we don't know it's something that would work on everyone. It's not unreasonable to assume given this evidence that there are people Kira cannot kill." 

"So if we can find out what they have in common, we can figure out who else he can't kill!" Matsuda added. I didn't even notice Matsuda was in the room until he spoke up. I don't count that as a failure of my own perceptions, I count that as him being incredibly uninteresting. 

"No, I doubt Svyatoslav will cooperate with any law enforcement agency," Ruizaki said. "If he knew he was Kira-Proof, that would just mean Kira would be able to kill his competitors and not himself. He wouldn't want to stop that. And he's in Russia now, the reliability of their law enforcement is spotty at best, it's highly unlikely we can have him detained... and we would likely need more than two people to establish what the factor is anyway. An interesting theory, but for now, only a theory. It's not even the most important part of miss Misora's experience, I believe." 

"How she died?" I knew what he was going to say, I wasn't going to give him more information than he had anyway, but it was good to get him talking, feed his ego about what a damn genius he was.

"Yes. She took many precautious so her death would be undiscovered. She was discovered by someone she cannot have forseen. She jumped at a time when the tide did not immediately take her away, so she was resuscitated."

Naomi looked up at me, beleaguered and exasperated, as we spoke about her too quickly for her to contribute, as if she were part of the furniture. I laughed inside at the irony of her looking to me for sympathy, but I made a show of giving it anyway; I nodded at her and cut him off. "Uh, Ryuzaki, I think that Naomi wants to say something." 

We all waited as she scribbled the note, then she passed it up to me, I read it aloud so we wouldn't have to bother passing it around. //LEAVE DEATH NOTE. DUMB QUOTE MOCK. NOT USE. KIRA I KNOW I AM//, she scribbled a thought balloon around "I know" trailing to Kira and another balloon with an X over it on "I am", which I read as //KIRA KNOWS WHAT I KNOW BUT NOT WHO I AM// Ryuk laughed again when I said the phrase 'death note'. I wondered how close Naomi was to the truth. This wasn't something I could test, and once the Death Note kicked in she refused a chance to capture Kira and told me there was 'something she needed to do', but she was obviously acting differently than she had minutes before. Did the Death Note know what to make her say then to act suicidal but not know enough about how she'd articulate her particular suicidal urge?

"Yes," said Ryuzaki, "if you'd let me finish my sentence, I would have said just that." He made an impatient little pouting noise. "This is in fact the biggest piece of information we have gathered about Kira so far. With one exception, each member of the investigation team is here because I trust that they are not Kira..."

Dad growled.

"...but there was no way to know anyone here was not having their actions controlled by Kira undetected, set on a program that would destroy the investigation and lead to their own death. Now, it seems, there would be a noticeable change in their behavior, as Kira would be unable to access certain knowledge of how they acted, and we would be able to prevent a Kira-induced sabotage."

"I never even thought about that." Matsuda interjected. "Man, I'm glad that isn't how it works."

"Yes... to be quite honest, I had already assumed his power had some similar limitation. I took no precaution against it."

Matsuda, Naomi, and Dad all looked at him with shock, and Naomi managed to stumble out a confused grunt that probably meant "Why?"

I nodded ruefully and put on my best 'quaking, hushed awe' voice. "Because if Kira could seamlessly control anyone in life or death, with no way to tell it was happening, there wouldn't be any precautions we could take. He'd, he'd be unstoppable."

"Yes. Kira would be a god," Ryuzaki said, chewing his nail. "Let's all be thankful he isn't."

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

L was using the name "Ryuzaki" here, to differentiate himself as an individual from L-the-institution. It was the same name BB had used, when he was impersonating L, but it wasn't like L copied the idea from him. I'd get over it.

So, 'Ryuzaki' told me and everyone else I was a member of the Kira Special Investigative Team. He gave me an ID card with a fake name and special emergency-signal belt, like every other member had received. He gave me a cell phone too, but he realized I couldn't really use it, and Watari said he would have a 'BlackBerry' for me within a few days. I was in the hotel room the team used as a meeting place and I participated in a meeting, talking about how we might be able to use these new restrictions on Kira's ability in order to track him down, but I didn't feel like a member of the team. 

Ryuzaki and Light Yagami were working on an entirely different level than anyone else, building up these huge chains of 'if Kira knows this, than he'd want us to think this, and if he knew that he would have chosen his victims in this manner, which this smudge on a photograph indicates he was left-handed, so the surgeon is a woman' that I don't think anyone else in the room could follow, and they all ended up back at 'so we don't really know anything' anyway. The few times other people like Matsuda and Chief Yagami could add something, they'd already said what I wanted to or moved on from the topic by the time I finished writing a message. I felt like Ryuzaki could have mentioned my case without bringing me here and I would have added the same amount. 

The meeting was over, the pizza boxes cleaned up -- Ryuzaki didn't eat any -- and now it was just him and me, in the two high-back chairs, staring at the image of Misa Amane in her straitjacket and metal blindfold. She'd been pleading for a while with the 'stalker' that she thought had imprisoned her to let her go, but now her head had lolled off to the side and she was snoring just barely loud enough for the microphone to pick up. Apparently she was some model, a celebrity here in Japan, but I'd been in America for years and the half-life of these teen idols is so short anyway I'd never heard of her. Ryuzaki also claimed she was the number one suspect to be the second Kira, the one who didn't need a name to kill, which justified the elaborate restraints. 

"She doesn't act like someone who could be Kira," Ryuzaki said, pausing to drop a marshmallow Peep in his mouth. "Admitting to idolizing Kira only makes her look guilty, as does the sudden switch to the story about a 'stalker'. The real Kira -- a real Kira -- would certainly have more sense than that."

//FAKE OUT?//

"Yes, I know, she could be pretending not to know what makes her look guilty to mask her actual guilt. That's the difficulty when trying to interview a sociopath, there is no level to which you can deconstruct their behavior to and get accurate information. And a sociopath wouldn't slip up due to emotion, but only if he logically but mistakenly believed something would benefit him." Another Peep, lifted with two fingers, down the hatch. "Her hair and skin were found on the envelopes the Kira tapes were found in, but theoretically she could have been tricked into sending them. Or perhaps compelled by Kira to do so and then avoided her death, like you. Or perhaps she left them there to appear careless deliberately."

//NOT KNOW. SOCIOPATH = NOT INFO.//

"Oh, I wasn't talking about Misa. She doesn't have the intelligence or emotional control to maintain this level of deception. Unless she has deliberately been building this persona since age ten, which is impossible, she's not a sociopath. She is an actress, which is a much lower tier." A third Peep into his mouth, he wasn't even biting them. "We don't know enough, but that doesn't mean we know nothing. Our problem may be that our means of restraint are too excessive. She has nothing to do but think of how to perfectly construct a lie, all day long, with nothing else to occupy her thoughts. With nothing to engage her, she has no chance to slip up. " He licked the yellow sugar powder off his fingertips. "And, as the second Kira was working with the first toward the same goal, we cannot expect a drastic reduction in Kira deaths to indicate we'd imprisoned one of them. If we had the second detained, the first would certainly increase his kill rate to throw suspicion off the other who was imprisoned."

I held up a finger to tell him to wait -- I had forgotten the note I was to give him. I reached into the briefcase and pulled out the note, which L unfurled to reveal //IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO DECIDE, YOU STILL HAVE MADE A CHOICE. -- GRAVES//

He stood up and put his hands in his pockets, not putting this note in the pile with the others. "Rush, 'Freewill'. That explains where you got your sidearm from. I'd have thought he'd agree that the Kira investigation was more important than this conflict with my employers..." He rubbed his chin, talking to himself. "...and I thought he'd have run out of those briefcases by now." Did Ryuzaki know this guy? How? Who were L's 'employers' anyway? What conflict? I knew that absolutely none of these questions were going to be answered. Yeah, the Kira investigation was more important than whatever this was. 

Ryuzaki looked back at me. "I'm going to have to ask you not to execute Misa Amane or Light Yagami, then. Light and I... have a little game we play, where I say that he is Kira, and something proves it. We're just playing a game. I don't believe he's Kira, I am testing his reasoning skills to see if he can succeed me. And if I did believe he was Kira, I would find it far more important to understand what Kira was doing and how, without alerting him, so I could prevent it from happening in the future. And while Misa may be the best suspect to be the second Kira, this does not mean she has a large chance of being Kira. Killing her would deprive us of valuable information. I would request that you please not shoot either of them."

Wow, that was nonchalant as Hell. //NOT KILL. NOT WANT.// Well, I thought about it a little, but I decided I didn't.

"That's good, because you'll have to speak with her soon."

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

Mogi followed me home, as he often did, so I did nothing unusual. I got home, I greeted Mom and my sister like normal, I walked into my room, and only then did I speak to the shinigami who had been floating over my shoulder.

First I told him, "I hereby rescind my earlier orders about forfeiting the Death Note. Don't assume that anything I say will secretly mean I want to give up the Death Note until I explicitly say otherwise." It wouldn't do to accidentally lose the Note and my memories in a normal conversation.

Ryuk gave me the 'thumbs up', his hand moved too slowly and he held it up for too long. "Gotcha. When you say 'get rid of it', it doesn't mean anything."

I paused, working something out. "You were laughing because you could see her lifespan with your Shinigami eyes. There's something obviously wrong with it. Zero? No. It's a negative number, isn't it?"

"Heh heh... You guessed it, Light." So, there were two things about her I needed to know. If her memory was returning, and what it means when your lifespan is a negative number. One of those I could find out.

L could probably pull a record of my library checkouts, so if I got a few books on neurology he could probably guess I was going to check out if Naomi's memories would come back. There could be a thousand other reasons why I would read those books, but I would have to bring them up in my own defense, and the instant I did that L would know I was guilty. 

So I couldn't be a hundred percent sure of the accuracy of my information, as it came from the Internet, but it did appear promising: if Naomi hadn't remembered my confession by this point, she probably never would. 'Probably' wasn't enough to stake my life on, but, at least a little of the pressure was off.

"Ooh, Light, click that one," Ryuk said from over my shoulder and pointed at the screen. "You can remember something but just forget where you know it from... that's weird." He chuckled, wheezy and gravelly. "Shinigami don't have brains. Is it scary to know a smack to the head can break you in so many different ways?"

"Not any more scary than knowing writing your name in a notebook will kill you."

"Ooh, that would be scarier, wouldn't it?" He grabbed an apple off the desk and took a noisy bite, I wondered if he would ever have enough. "So what are you going to do about Naomi? I don't want to wait to see the plan."

I could in theory unfold the paper I'd hidden in my watch, start writing names on the back and the folded parts. But it was no good. It was far less than a sheet and I'd only be able to keep up killings for a few days. I needed to validate his suspicion for now, now that she was safely in custody. Kira would go silent.

"Well, I can't use the Death Note to have someone else kill her, since one entry can't kill two people. I could send her into a situation where she's most likely to die, but I couldn't use the Death Note for it, and it would require I get close to her to manipulate her. I can't kill her myself, because it would be infinitely harder to make sure there was nothing to trace back to me."

"It's a lot different without a Death Note, right?" I think he thought he was grinning, but with his wide maw and jagged teeth I couldn't really tell when he wasn't grinning. "All that blood everywhere. You're lucky, shinigami aren't allowed to kill humans without using the Death Note. It's the worst punishment we can get."

"Well, it doesn't matter anyway, because the most effective course of action is not going to be to kill her. If I can get her off the case, destroy her credibility, or find some other way to neutralize her without killing her, it can't be Kira-related. Prison, a mental institution, something like that."

"You came up with that pretty quick. You're good."

I briefly considered writing Naomi's name in my watch to be safe, on the back of the page, but L would assume I hadn't known she was alive until today even if it did work, and it wouldn't. "I can't be sure she won't eventually recover her memory, and if I submit myself into custody there remains the chance she could get it back before I've convinced Ryuzaki I'm not Kira, and then he'll know that everything I've done was a ploy and I wouldn't have the memories to defend myself. But if Ryuzaki becomes suspicious enough of me to have me imprisoned like Misa, I'll be in an even worse position. The investigation needs to keep advancing to occupy his time. We can hunt the decoy Kira, or look for some nonexistent Kira immunity factor."

"Oh, there's a factor, all right." I think he smiled, but again, it was hard to tell. "Misspell someone's name four times, or spell it right once."

"Kill them? Naomi survived having her name written."

"What makes you say that?" He laughed. He loved it when I ran into a restriction or factor I didn't know about, because he loved seeing me have to adapt to it. "She did exactly what the Note made her do. She tried to kill herself on January first, and she did. But then again, human medical technology has advanced pretty far. If someone's nearby with those paddles, you can bring back a human who's been dead for... what is it, five minutes? And if there's more than one entry in the Death Note for someone, only the earliest one works. Not even the Death Note is perfect, you know. You probably won't need to kill someone with 12 minutes of life left anyway, will you?" 

"And your shinigami eyes can't tell that she didn't stay dead and figure out what her lifespan should be now, so they just say how long since she's 'died'?" Ryuk was playing with me, and it was getting tiresome. "I said that nobody would find her until much later. There couldn't have been someone close enough to resuscitate her." 

"Oh, Light, you already figured this one out. You couldn't make the prisoners write out facts they didn't know. You said, how did you word it..." he put his hand on his chin in a grotesque pantomime on contemplation, "...that she 'becomes consumed with the desire to kill herself in such a way that it inconveniences no-one and her body is not found for a long time,' or something close to that. You can make her try to kill herself so she won't be found, but all she can do is try. Heh... That's why the standard option is a heart attack, it doesn't require the person to know anything. Doesn't let them get back up, either."

"So she was found by someone she didn't know would be there, and tried to kill herself in such a way that she could be revived. I should have been more specific."

"No, what you should have done is not confessed you were Kira. And now you have a living dead girl who might be able to remember your secret and you can't use the Death Note on her. How are you going to deal with this one, Light?"

I was going to make a plan, that's what.

### 
    
    
    * R U L E S *

**15a**. When the same name is written on two or more Death Notes, the note which was first filled in will take effect, regardless of the time of death.

 **Change Request:** All rules about writing names in Death Notes, except those that specify the conditions of an invalid entry, should specify that they refer only to valid Death Note entries (correctly spelled while envisioning a unique face) to avoid confusion. Misspelling a human's name or writing a name without thinking of a face will not protect them from future use.

 **X-1a**. The time of death written in the Death Note corresponds to when the human's heart does not beat, blood does not flow, and brain has no activity for 117 consecutive seconds. This is necessary because the process of human dying has such a wide variance in time elapsed.

 **X-1b**. It not inconceivable for developments in human medical science to revive humans who meet these criteria and return them to life. Such a human will still, eventually, die, and not be revived. As a valid entry already exists in the Death Note for this human, further entries cannot be created for them.


	2. Folie A Deux

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

//GOOD IDEA?// The masked guard read off my note into a hidden microphone, and I stared into the camera set up on the desk of the security office. My face made my tone clear, that I doubted this. Two guards were here, waiting to relieve me of my gun and any sharp objects I was carrying, so they could take me down the hallway into Misa Amane's room.

"If it weren't," Ryuzaki responded, through the speaker, "I would not ask you to do it. As I said, she is most likely not the second Kira. And she is physically restrained and blindfolded at all times. Should she somehow lift them, and should she somehow be Kira, you are the one person on this planet who she might not be able to kill."

The monitor here was much higher-quality than the one in the hotel room, and full color; I could see what was inside the room perfectly. A young woman with medium-length blonde hair, becoming more unkempt as it grew. Arms bound tight in a white straitjacket, a series of leather straps holding her to a stretcher that had been turned upright and bolted to the floor, forcing her into a standing position. A thick metal ring wrapped around her eyes, blindfolding her. Her bare ankles were shackled to the rails at the bottom, and an IV bag hung from each side, hooked to a computer control. I guessed one was to feed her, and the other was to sedate her when they needed to refill, empty, remove or alter some other part of the rig. Ryuzaki was either very afraid of her, very into S&M, or both.

//SEE RESTRAIN. I HERE NOT ROOM?//

"You are here and not in the hotel room because I intend to exploit your disability," he said, very matter-of-factly.

"Wow," chuckled the guard. "That L has a hell of a way with people, don't he?"

"As I said, I believe Misa needs to be emotionally engaged, rather than interrogated. I don't have the skill to do this adequately; as evidence, I offer the fact that I just said I wanted to exploit your disability. You have been tangibly and demonstrably harmed by Kira in a way that she can perceive without looking at you. She will have to take a more active role in the communication in order to simply know what you are saying, increasing her stake in it. You will be a human in the room, not a voice from a speaker, and she will be unable to find out that you are acting, because you are not."

If the brain-damaged lady yelled at her, she'd feel bad and confess? //BRAIN BAD YELL = CONFESS FEEL?//

"You can yell at her if you think it would make her feel bad, but I think we'd have far better results if you were to take a more friendly approach." He heard me -- and the guards -- react, and added, "But you can choose what to do based on your own assessment of the situation. I will trust your judgment."

I guess I could try. If he was certain Misa knew something she was not telling us. //MISA HIDE KIRA. KNOW?// 

"I know that if she does, this is the only way we will find out."

I sighed. //MISA KILL I. HURT. BAD.// I'd rather not die, but if it would happen... at least we'd know for sure. And if we knew she was Kira, I wanted her to suffer. I wanted molten iron Spanish Inquisition torture.

"If she is Kira, and you aren't immune, and she escapes restraints or has other powers, and she does kill you, she will spend every remaining second of her life praying for the release of death," he said in the flat tone one usually uses to order lunch. "But I ask you not to think about that, as she is most likely not Kira." I nodded and slipped off my jacket so I could remove my gun.

After they relieved me of my weapon, they gave me a folding chair and escorted me to the door of Misa Amane's holding cell. I brought the purple squish ball with me, squeezing it was becoming more of a nervous tic than part of a therapy regimen. The cylindrical metal door sealed behind me, and Misa turned toward the sound. "What is it? Who's there?" 

L's computer-distorted voice came out of the speakers he'd set up. "Misa, you have a visitor. This woman would like to talk to you for a short while... if that's all right."

"What, you've invited your otaku friends over for more of the Misamisa bondage-interrogation fantasy?"

I unfolded the chair and took a set in front of Misa, carefully positioning myself so as not to block the camera's line of sight. "She isn't a stalker, Misa. Her name is Naomi and she merely wants to have a conversation with you."

Misa didn't react to the name, but then again she didn't need a name and probably wouldn't have tried too hard to get it. "Hello... Misa."

"Uh, hello," she chuckled nervously, "Miss Naomi. Uh... Lovely weather, isn't it?"

"No." I fidgeted in my seat, already feeling frustrated with how little I could speak. "Uhh... Kira?"

"Look, I told you before, I'm not Kira! You're taping this, right? Can't you just play the tape back instead of asking me again?"

"No! Like, uh, Kira?"

"Why are you talking like that, lady?" She put on a face that was half-sneer, half-pout. "Are you retarded or something?"

"Hurt, uh, hurt, brain." 

"So... I'm guessing that's a yes?" She sniggered, clearly uneven.

"No!" I growled, stomped my foot, and squeezed my purple ball. I sure as hell sounded and felt retarded, didn't I? "T... Talk hurt."

"So, like, you just talk funny?" I grunted the affirmative, glad my brain didn't count that as 'speech'. "But you're not retarded. Uh... all right?" She sounded more nervous and off-base than before, which was exactly what Ryuzaki wanted, but I felt pretty off-base myself. Maybe Ryuzaki wanted that too. "And, uh, you think I'm like Kira?"

I did, in that you didn't care about other people's lives, but that wasn't what I wanted to ask. "LIKE... like, like, uh, Kira." God. Standing in front of Kira's biggest fan, I could think of a thousand different biting, acerbic things to say, snappy and withering remarks right out of a Tarantino movie. And I could only stammer and drunkenly blunder through a three-word sentence, leaving her wondering what the hell I was trying to say.

"Oh. Ohhh, you want to know why I like Kira." I grunted in the affirmative again. She was already being slightly more cooperative and engaged, Ryuzaki was right about that too. "Well, I told your friend before, Mrs. Stalker. Kira killed the man who murdered my parents when he was going to get away with it. He's my hero! He's keeping the world safe from evil and criminals."

My face turned red and my hands shook. How could she say something like that? God, didn't she know all the suffering Kira had caused? "All?"

"Well, he's not keeping the criminals very safe." She giggled and I wanted to punch her teeth out the back of her throat. 

"Need... uh, ah, kill?"

"What kind of an awful question is that?" She shook around in her restraints a little. "Of course he needed to die! He murdered my parents!"

You know what? If you were there, and you KNEW it was him, maybe he did deserve to die. That doesn't mean anyone who kills him is a saint. "Ummm... Other?"

"No, I don't think he killed anyone else, but aren't my parents enough? He was gonna do it again!" I growled in frustration. "Oh, oh, oh, you mean if all the other criminals deserved it. Well they had to, right? Otherwise they wouldn't be criminals."

"Frame?" Tears started to roll down my cheeks, but I held back on the sobs. How could she be so callous? And why couldn't I just SAY what I wanted to say?

"You know, everyone always says that on TV and stuff, and it's just so stupid!" She stomped her foot by about a centimeter. "Everyone knows these people are guilty, right? It's always that they get the evidence thrown out or the witnesses get killed or whatever, but we KNOW they're all guilty. And they're going to get away with it unless someone stops them, right? Kira's just doing what everyone wishes they could do, and you can't tell me that the whole world wants something that's wrong!"

"Me?"

"Probably you too, right? You can't tell me there's never been anyone who hurt you and got away with it, who you wished there was some way to get back at!"

I couldn't, and not because of the brain injury. And the answer I gave her wasn't the complete one. I grunted an affirmative noise. "Kira! Kira... uhh, Raye."

"Who's Raye?" She asked like she was being walked into a trap.

Of course you didn't know about Raye. You kept your eyes closed to avoid seeing anything that would make Kira look evil. "Fiancé. And, and, and... Innocent."

"He killed your fiancé?" I couldn't see her eyes, but by the way she shifted I knew she was glancing off to the side in discomfort. "Was he... Was he trying to stop Kira?"

"Uh-huh."

"Oh, shit. Did he mess up your brain, too?"

"Uh-huh." He violated me. He raped my entire identity, Misa Amane. Uh-huh. He messed up my brain.

"Wow." I knew Ryuzaki had asked her before about if it was justified to kill the police, and she'd said yes, since they were interfering with Kira's work. But now that I was here in the room, she just couldn't say it. "I'm, uh, I'm really sorry... that happened."

I wanted to punch her. I wanted to get up and break her kneecaps and scream in her face. But... I saw the way she moved her head, that she couldn't meet my gaze even when she couldn't look at me at all. I'd got to her, when she realized 'the reason this person is so hard to communicate with is because Kira inflicted that on her' it made her squirm around inside. And she recomposed herself, looked forward and tried to look unaffected but I saw her lip was quivering just slightly. She was no sociopath, this wasn't an act.

"It... It doesn't matter, okay! I told you everything I know! I told you I'M NOT KIRA!"

I hated her when I heard those horrible things fall out of her mouth. But at the same time I knew exactly how she felt. There but for the grace of God... I could have been her, if I had a few less years and a lot less sense. The horrible talk about Kira was a cover-up. But why the hell did I care why she did it, she was cheerleading for someone who murdered the man I loved! I sat there, seething, warring with myself over how to feel, until I heard L's voice saying "I believe that will be enough, miss Naomi."

They put me through a few behavioral tests before they gave me the gun back, to make sure I wasn't under Kira's control from being in there. If I was, they reasoned, I wouldn't be able to follow complex commands that weren't related to my own death. I checked out, and they let me at the safe I'd placed my weapon and bag in.

I walked out feeling exploited. Ryuzaki had said beforehand that was his intent, but I felt no less awful. I was there to be a walking sob story, a figure of pity, someone so pathetic and broken even the heartless killer would feel sorry for her.

Maybe Ryuzaki got what he needed out of her, maybe not. Who knows what tiny cues Ryuzaki searches for. I don't think Ryuzaki knows what I got out of her, though.

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

When Ryuzaki mentioned that Naomi Misora would need an assistant, I saw an opportunity, and I jumped on it. Ryuzaki had given her one of those 'BlackBerry' phone-organizer-computer things, and a laptop for when she could sit down and use both hands. Both had the same text-to-speech program installed on them that was easier to use in groups than writing, but she was still physically crippled and communicating was laborious. So, to speed up the process of her retracing her footsteps in the days between Raye Penber's death and her suicide attempt, she would need a personal assistant. And since Watari was busy, they'd need a member of the investigation to accompany her. 

I volunteered instantly and Ryuzaki, the overconfident fool, accepted. I could see it in his eyes, his enormous pupils showed perfectly what he was thinking. He thought this was a game of chicken, that I would come close to her to show I wasn't afraid, and back away or try to kill her if I thought her memory was returning. Watari wasn't too busy to sit somewhere across the street with a scoped rifle ready to blow my guts out if I did anything unusual. But he didn't know what he was looking for, did he?

We were sitting on a table by the street, me nibbling a biscotti while she scrutinized a map of Tokyo she'd already written a spiderweb of paths and directions on, cross-checking with several photocopied credit card receipts. She'd eaten at this coffee shop several times during her stay, but nobody remembered her acting unusual. She wrote an 'O' on the map where the shop stood, sighed, and took a sip of her drink -- orange juice, oddly enough. 

"So," I asked, nonchalant but of course ever-helpful. "Do you think we should track down any employees who got fired? Maybe one of them saw you, and their information would have to be on file for taxes." 

She shook her head and typed out a response, the program read it back in a voice that was like Megumi Hayashibara trying to impersonate Stephen Hawking. //NOT MEMORY I. MEMORY FIRE.//

"You're probably right. And it's better get through all of this as soon as we could, so we could know where to focus in on." I took another bite, and wished I'd bought a drink. "So where did you, I mean, where do we go next? We have to be near the end, right?"

//CLOSE.// She tapped the symbol of a subway station with her pencil. //HERE. 2HR. NO CC.//

"No credit cards. Kasumigaseki?" She nodded. "You think you were going to police headquarters."

//LAST I COME. KIRA LEAVE.//

I put my hand on hers, of course, I was so very reassuring. "Just let me know if you need something else, then. I'll be ready for it when you are."

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

"I'm sorry," the man behind the counter said, "But we don't have a sign-in record of this woman. I can't make records just appear out of thin air!" I had asked him the question, but Light was the one who could talk like a human being, so Light was the one the man was carrying on the conversation with.

//THANK.// The man looked uncomfortable as I typed out my response on my phone, but my new 'assistant' Light didn't try to cut me off and respond for me.

Light put his arm around my shoulder as he walked, and I hobbled, out of the police building. I guess I'd been in America too long because I couldn't recall if that level of intimacy was supposed to be offensive or not. "So, maybe this means you didn't get here, or you got here but not long enough to talk to anyone. Kira could have been nearby... who knows, maybe a walk around will jog your memory, if it happened close to here."

I nodded, having put my phone away in my pocket to pull out my purple squish ball. I didn't really feel like talking anyway. He let go and let me limp on ahead on my own, leaning on my crutch instead of another person, while he walked alongside me with his hands in his pockets, silently counting the trees as we passed them. Ryuzaki had told me to keep an eye on him, of course, even if I shouldn't blow his brains out he was slightly more likely to be Kira than anyone else. But only ever so slightly. So I was watching him... he seemed nice, understanding, and supportive, but he seemed like something else too, something I couldn't pin down. But he was keeping me company, and didn't seem impatient while I walked or tried to finish a sentence, and I took what I could get.

"You know, my father's been on the investigation team since the beginning, but, he doesn't really talk about the work. I have to admit, I'd been thinking a lot about the Kira case for a long time, but couldn't really talk to anyone about it." He chuckled. "Everybody has their own theories about what's going on, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"I mean, it's one thing to talk about Kira controlling his victims, or how he does, in the abstract sense, like you're putting together the pieces of a puzzle. But to see you here, someone it's really happened to? I feel guilty for ever thinking of it like that. I'm glad you could join the Kira Special Investigative Team to... I'm sorry, I'm probably making you uncomfortable, aren't I?"

"S... some."

We reached the corner and looked around. "Anything looking familiar?" I shook my head. "Maybe you were on the other side of the building." He glanced at the crutch. "You want to walk to the other side?" I nodded. My arm was getting sore but I'd feel even worse if I let that stop me.

"So..." he said after a time, "Somebody told me you worked with L before. In America, when you were with the FBI."

I pulled out my pad of paper and stopped walking, he waited patiently for my response. Though the phone was useful, I still liked to write out what I said when it was just to one other person. My handwriting was more 'me' than a robotic synthesized voice. //NOT W/FBI. LABB KILLER//

"I heard, what was it, the 'Beyond Birthday' killer? That's a pretty strange name."

I sighed. //NOT TALK I.// The violence was brutal and senseless and the killer was literally hiding in plain sight the entire time, and he got me pontificating about lowercase letters like I was Adam West talking about the Riddler's latest crime. It sure wasn't something to brag about. I swore off coffee for life, I was an orange juice girl now, just because drinking coffee reminded me of him dumping cubes of sugar in his Starbucks cup until it became viscous brown sludge. And that reminded me of his existence. And that reminded me of how I should have caught him instead of being duped by him.

"Oh, okay, I didn't know it was sensitive." He ran his hand through his hair. "Just, you know, most people don't even get to talk to L." He paused. "Oh. Do you think that maybe there wasn't a sign-in record for you because you gave him a fake name, and you don't remember?"

//FAKE NAME. SAME.//

"Oh, right, you showed him that Shoko Maki ID, because that's who you were going as before, right? That's probably pretty smart to come here using a fake name. You're a cut above me, at least."

//NOT ENOUGH.// I pointed at the crutch. 

He hissed through his teeth and fell back a few steps, probably to avoid putting his foot in his mouth again. He was so earnest, and it was probably nervousness more than anything else, but it was almost as if he had a list of everything that would irritate or depress me and he was going through all of them.

After a little while he called out to me. "Naomi, wait." I turned around, and for some reason he was looking at his watch. "There's something else I have to tell you."

"Huh?"

"I'm..." He looked up from the watch face and I thought I saw the hint of a smile, holding back nervous laughter. "...sorry. For what I said earlier, about it being safer for you to go back to the US. I really... I really respect that you could go through something like that, and yet come back here and face Kira again. It takes a lot of courage."

//FEAR NOT MATTER. KIRA DIE.// We stared at each other for a few awkward seconds before I wrote a followup note. //THANK, LIGHT.//

There was something... Something here. Something had happened. He walked me all over, back and forth. I knew... I remembered something. I feel like I talked to someone outside headquarters here. I feel like we walked, back and forth, like this. Only it was snowing. What were we talking about? What was... Was that person Kira? Did they mark me for Kira? Who were they? I stopped in the street, holding my head, trying to concentrate. Yes. Yes, I had a conversation with someone. It was here. There was nothing after it. What did they look like?

I concentrated as hard as I could. 

I couldn't remember a word of what had been spoken. Someone was here, and they tried to stop me from leaving...

It was Light. Light Yagami was here. He met me here, in the snow, before New Year's. He stopped me from going to the police. He was looking at his watch and saying something. Him, all along. I almost pulled out my gun and shot him in the gut. Not to kill him, but to stop him from escaping when he realized he'd been made. And to make him suffer.

But no. It didn't fit. It didn't make sense. Why would he be standing here in three inches of snow, wearing a white button-up with short sleeves and brown loafers? Why would he wear an identical outfit to come assist me now? The neurologist warned me about this. After amnesia, your memory pastes over holes with whatever it had available. I remembered the mysterious conversation I was having right now. I didn't remember anything.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

I had my own bedroom, in the opulent hotel room Ryuzaki was using for a meeting room. He said he didn't want to walk in on me naked. I don't think he realized how often he did that anyway. I wore clothes, of course, I wore a lot of them. Dark pants, long sleeves, gloves, motorcycle jacket, even inside. The only skin showing was my face and believe me if it had been socially acceptable to walk around in a ski mask I would have. But I wasn't naked when I went without clothes, I was naked when I went without my gun. I was vulnerable, exposed, without the now-familiar weight just underneath my armpit. How did I ever, ever think I could walk around without one of these?

Misa Amane was blindfolded, but when I went into her holding cell unarmed, I felt like I was showing her my naked body, that she could see the ghost-pale flesh on my thighs and stomach, skin I hadn't allowed to see the sun in months. And scars, a tapestry of them, a record of what had been done to me written in my flesh. Wide and deep ones from the initial injuries, for the angry, bold words like 'MURDER' and 'BETRAYED' and 'ALONE'. And the slim dainty ones from the innumerable surgeries afterward to put me back together, linking the others together, invisible conjunctions and prepositions like I couldn't use any more. 

L thought I was reluctant to speak to Misa again because of her stated love for Kira, but that was only part of it. I couldn't go in there armed, lest she get the gun away from me or put some horrible power on me and force me to use it. And I didn't want to be naked in front of her.

But, I ended up having to be. Until further notice or further evidence, my job was Misa Amane Specialist. I did, at least, get to bring in the laptop to speak with; I guess the initial pity had been established. The other advantage was that she'd have much less an idea how I was responding emotionally to anything. Ryuzaki had specifically told me not to assume she was lying, but I figured I'd make it easier for him to figure out if she was.

"Naomi has come to speak with you again, Misa." Ryuzaki paused while I sat down in the folding chair and opened up the laptop. "Please, be polite."

"Uh... Hi again, Miss Naomi." Her cheer was obviously fake; the sarcasm that motivated it was slightly less obvious and no less fake.

"Hello... hello, hello... Misa." I inhaled deeply and started typing. //THINK LAST SPEAK TIME?//

"...What's with the robot voice? Is that the stalker guy?"

//NO. NAOMI. COMPUTER TYPE ANSWER. EASY.//

"Easy, like, easier? Easier for you to write or easier for me to understand?" She moped a bit. "Either way doesn't seem like much."

//FRUSTRATE. KNOW SAY. HEAR NORMAL. WORD NOT. BODY NOT. I CRY TRY.// As though it were a secret confession of weakness but read by an emotionless robot voice. It was true, it often did make me cry, but it wasn't a secret. The pamphlet they gave me for my co-workers to read said it was very common for people with my condition to cry when we had difficulty expressing, and that this was nothing for anybody to be ashamed of and part of the condition. I barely spent time with the other investigators and they'd seen me cry. I felt more ashamed that I couldn't talk than I did about crying, but there was no way to cover up either, they were no secret.

"You... You're frustrated. You know what you want to say, and you can hear it, but you can't make the words come, and it makes you cry, right? That... it sounds really scary." She shook her head slightly. "Bu-but I'm really scared too. I can't see, and I can't move, and I don't know where I am, talking is the only thing I can do! If you know how that feels, you wouldn't want to put someone else through that, would you?"

//NOT CHOOSE.//

"You can choose for me..." She sniffled. "You could tell Mr. Stalker to let me go..."

Again with the 'stalker' conceit. I wasn't going down that road again, not just yet. Something else she said was worrying me. //STRUGGLE.// I implored.

"It is a struggle! If you know it's a struggled, you know I can't do it alone!" she pleaded.

No, damn it! //STRUGGLE YOU.//

"Oh... Okay, if you can do it alone, maybe I am the only one struggling! But I still don't deserve this!"

Agh, god damn it! What was... how do I say... //WIGGLE.//

"Wiggle?" She was just confused now. "Wha... Like struggle, as in struggle against my restraints, wiggling around? Is this what Mr Stalker gets off to?"

"No!" Argh! //NOT MOVE MUSCLE WEAK. ATROPHY. I ATROPHY.//

"Oh. Oh, okay? You want me... to wiggle in my restraints... so I can exercise my muscles... and they won't atrophy. Because you atrophied. When you were in the hospital for the brain thing?" Misa started to writhe uncoordinatedly in her straitjacket. "I mean... That's probably a good idea, Miss Naomi. I was twisting around before but I gave up. Does this mean you're thinking about letting me go, now?"

Ryuzaki's voice came over the loudspeaker. "Miss Amane's medical needs are already being taken care of, Naomi. She is under the care of my physicians, and her vitals are being monitored. Her prescriptions are even continued and included in her IV drip: 50 mg of lithium carbonate per day, 50,000 IU of vitamin D per week, and a standard 28-day course of ortho tri-cyclen."

Misa blushed scarlet. "I'm... I'm not crazy! I just needed something to even me off after Mom and Dad died. And, and I'm not having sex, either!" She turned away. "I just get cramps, that's all."

I hoped Ryuzaki could see me glowering at the camera. Him and Misa could definitely hear my disapproving grunts. Her prescription history was not something he needed to reveal. I don't know if it made it worse that he wasn't even trying to humiliate her.

"Ahem. Yes. Well." I hope he realized that he went over the line. "In any case, her limbs are already manually manipulated whenever she's drugged, to prevent atrophy." I pointed at myself while looking at the hidden camera, then to my arm. "Hmm... that's probably a fair point. If miss Amane would prefer, unrelated to our investigation, I can set regular reminders for her to engage in physical activity."

"Great. Now my stalker gave me a wiggle alarm. That's just phenomenal," she grumbled to herself, but she smiled just at the end.

I opened another window and got ready for some copy and pasting. //GOOD. COMPLETE. TALK KIRA FEEL.//

"What, talk about my feelings or yours? Because I already told you what important things he's doing and... and, you don't really agree. On that."

Control-V. Text to speech. //ALPHONSE ELLIS WAS A BLACK MAN WHO CAME TO TOKYO TO TEACH THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. ONE OF HIS STUDENTS WAS A GIRL WHO HAPPENED TO HAVE A BOYFRIEND HER PARENTS DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT. WHEN SHE FOUND OUT SHE WAS PREGNANT, SHE PANICKED, AND SHE SAID HER BIG SCARY BLACK TEACHER RAPED HER RATHER THAN ADMIT TO HER PARENTS SHE WAS PREVIOUS PAGE 5 OF 8 NEXT SEXUALLY ACTIVE. ONE WEEK AFTER THE ARREST SHE RECANTED HER STORY BECAUSE IT WAS FULL OF HOLES AND MADE NO SENSE. BUT BY THAT TIME THE POLICE HAD BEATEN A CONFESSION OUT OF HIM AND WERE GOING AHEAD WITH THE CASE ANYWAY. TWO DAYS AFTER THE INDICTMENT, WHILE BOTH THEIR FAMILIES WERE TRYING TO HAVE THE CASE DROPPED, ALPHONSE ELLIS DIED OF A MEDICALLY INEXPLICABLE HEART ATTACK. HE LEFT A WIFE AND INFANT DAUGHTER.// I silently vowed to check closer when copying from page breaks.

"That's... It's sad, okay! But isn't Kira's fault, though!" she said, probably to convince herself more than me. "That girl shouldn't have lied like that when she knew Kira was killing criminals. She murdered that man, not Kira."

//RECANT. STOP. NOT STOP. GIRL JUMP TRAIN. BOYFRIEND HANG. NAME SECRET.// I didn't want her thinking Kira killed the girl for being a murderer.

"She killed herself... Well, she had a guilty conscience! She knew what she did was wrong! It's still her fault! If she, if she jumped in front of a train, right, she knew the train was coming, the conductor didn't kill her!" 

//NOT KIRA, UNDO MISTAKE. KIRA, THREE CORPSE. NOT JUSTICE.// She had nothing to say to that. So I pasted something again for her: //PAGE 5 OF 8//.

"You have more people. You're... going to tell me about your boyfriend Raye now, huh?" A nearly pitch-perfect 'bratty princess' voice. Nearly.

//YES.//

"Yeah, well, you might as well not bother!"

She was trying to make me angry so she wouldn't have to engage me. She was trying to seem angry so I wouldn't want to. I almost typed this one out but decided it need to be in my voice as embarrassing as it might be. "Uh... n-not?"

"Not? Not, you mean, you mean WHY not? Because! You're just gonna, just try to make me feel guilty, and, and I don't even know if any of this is real anyway! Your boyfriend could be the stalker for all I know!"

I shuddered. This one, I wanted her to hear my emotion, and I had to control myself very, very well to neither slap her nor preface this with a giant 'ummm'. Slapping her was what she wanted, and an 'ummm' would make me look stupid. "...Horrible."

"Yeah, yeah, well, uh," She was on the verge of tears and trying to mask it as defiance. She knew what she'd said was awful and I could tell it hurt her just to say it, not to mention hear how I responded. "It doesn't matter, because, I, and it doesn't..." her voice fell to a whisper. "Please don't. I'm sorry I said that. Please, please don't tell me about him. I'm sure he was really nice. He was a real good guy."

I thought about it. Long and hard. Misa wasn't one to break, not if we wanted anything out of her. And her fear couldn't be more obvious. She was afraid of two thoughts in her head eating each other and devouring everything else in her head in the process. I would spare her. //OKAY.// Time to change the subject. I didn't have many options. //LIGHT TALK. TELL.//

"Tell you, about Light? What about him? He's my boyfriend, and..." She gasped. "You're not going to kill him so that nothing can stand between you and us, are you Mr. Stalker? Because I will really, really, really hate you forever if you did! It wouldn't work!"

//LIGHT FINE. CASE NEED. TALK ENJOY.//

"Light's fine... and you enjoy talking about the case? No? Light is the investigation and you like talking to him. No. Light is fine, but, oh, because you're investigating me you need to know about him, and maybe I like talking about him? Did I get it?" I grunted in the affirmative. "Well, I do, but... where do I start?"

//MEET?//

"Oh, we met in Aoyama, and even before I talked to him I knew he was going to be The One..." Her voice became tranquil and dreamlike. She wanted to move away from the last topic as soon as possible. "The way he walked, the way he smiled, the way the light shone on his hair... It was love at first sight. I knew he was strong, but tender, and nurturing and smart and charming..."

//FATHER.//

"Yeah, I guess he did remind me of Dad. Not the way he looked or how he spoke, but, there was just something about him that I knew would make everything okay. He had the same look in his eyes."

Head-over-heels in love and she's barely met the guy, and now she's utterly convinced they are Meant To Be. I felt sorry for her, and not just because I felt like if she ever got out of here she was headed for a string of abusive relationships with men that superficially resemble Daddy. Light must be a saint to not have dumped her by now... //TALK LIGHT?//

"I... I thought I was talking about Light?"

Argh, god damn it, this again. Ryuzaki cut in to save my bacon. "Naomi is asking if you want to talk to Light. If you give us more information, we can arrange for you to have a mediated visit with him."

"More-- I told you all I know already! I'm not Kira! I met Light in Aoyama, and we hit it off immediately! I can't-- You'll really let me talk to him? Like, not a joke?" How did she not have whiplash?

//NOT JOKE. CONDITION. NOT SECRET.//

"Your sound and his will be muffled, so you can hear each other's voice and cadence but not the words you use," Ryuzaki said. I was not one to deliver the details of something. "Your actual sentences will be passed through an interpreter to destroy any coded content."

"Interpreter? Someone who... It's you, isn't it, Naomi?" She looked disappointed, but just as quickly, conciliatory. "I guess that's actually pretty smart. Like, if he's worried about secret codes, you can't deliver them even by accident, right? I'll still get to hear him and know what he's saying, so I don't care!"

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

I sat on the edge of my bed, holding a manila folder, turning it over in my hands but not opening it. I'd been unable to open it all these weeks. On the front of it, in block letters, were the words //EVIDENCE OF BETRAYAL: KITAMURA KOREYOSHI, AS REGARDS THE MURDER OF RAYE PENBER.// Walter Sorenson's file was still in the bag. If Graves was right, this file was all the proof anyone would ever need that Kitamura Koreyoshi had set my husband up to die.

We'd walked down the street, Light and I, and as we passed people going the other way they would take a look at me and swerve off to the side, to give me more room. I knew that they were just getting out of my way because they didn't want to bump into me and make me trip, but I couldn't shake the feeling that they saw something on me, the mark of Kira or something, and stayed away. Even Light himself had been acting weird, like he didn't know how to talk to me, I'd made him uncomfortable and he was flailing for topics of conversation but all he could think of was Kira because that's all I reminded him of. 

I knew why I made him so uncomfortable. We say that life is precious, and we look around at the world and all its people and we say we're part of it. We like to tell ourselves our lives are not simply precious, but durable; they are something we can hold on to, protect, and preserve. And when they end we will be mourned and missed. Nobody ever really stops to think about how wrong it all is. All those people you see around each day, how many would notice or care if you stopped walking down the same streets as them? I could count mine on my fingers, without using the two that won't bend any more, and most of them would take only a passing interest. How long would it take them to move on? We say we'd want our loved ones to move on and be happy, but I think deep down part of us wants to be mourned forever, because once the crying stops, then we are truly dead.

Kira doesn't think that life is precious, but few murderers do. But what he forces us to confront is how fleeting it is, how easy it is for anyone to take it from you. Most people don't just need a face and a name, but if someone gets it in his mind to murder you, there's little you can do to stop it. We eat three times a day and drink often, innumerable chances for someone to slip us one of a number of horrific and undetectable poisons. We spend one third of our lives asleep, unable to respond to anything, giving someone ample opportunity to end our lives in any way he desires. Someone you pass on the street could pull a gun and shoot you in the back of the head. We don't think about that, we tell ourselves we would be able to notice, or that we won't give someone a reason to murder us, but we're wrong. When someone close to us is taken, like Misa's parents, we aren't just shaken by the loss of a loved on, we're shaken by the reminder of how fragile our own lives really are. And here I am, a living reminder of how easy it is to have your life snatched away from you, and that there's someone out there who can do it to anyone he pleases. And in my hands, there may be proof of how easy it was for Raye's life to be snatched away.

I'd survived Kira only by sheer blind luck. Nothing I earned, nothing I accomplished, had bought my way out of death. If Kira had told someone else to jump off a cliff, they could have survived. And if Kira told me to get a heart attack, I'd be dead. It could have been anyone in my place, but it was me. I didn't feel privileged or chosen, this wasn't a second chance. This was the tattered remains of my first chance, the parts I was lucky enough for Kira not to tear off. And Raye wasn't as lucky as me. Kira took all of his life in one go. And what if Kitamura Koreyoshi and Walter Sorenson took it, too? It had been as easy to them as writing a memo. They threw his life away not because of anything I did, but because they wanted to get me back, and they thought my fiance's death at the hands of a criminal would emotionally devastate me enough to drive me back into the arms of the FBI. To them, they could throw away his life, and my soul, because they thought their end was worth it. They were as bad as Kira, they simply didn't have the body count.

But just like me, their lives were fragile, and easy for someone to take. And for a horrid second I had the thought, that if someone like Kira could tell the world he was Justice and take so many lives, that I could be Revenge and take three. I drove it out of my mind as soon as I had it, and the idea that I'd ever think such a thing made my physically ill. 

But so help me God I opened those folders up and read the contents of both in one sitting.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

Once again I found myself in a folding chair staring at a blindfolded, straitjacketed girl. My laptop was out, and the switch to change from a male voice to a female one on the text to speech program was rolled out. I had a wire going into my good ear, ready to relay what Light said, and my left speaker channel was going back to L's room.

"Light! Is it really you? Please, you have to get me out of here! I'm gonna go crazy!"

Female vocoder. //LIGHT REAL? ESCAPE I. INSANE SOON.//

"You're -- don't go insane, okay! I'm talking to the Kira Investigation Team. I'm trying to get you out. Your manager's trying to get you out too. But you're not in danger, okay?"

Male vocoder. //NOT INSANE. TALK KIRA TEAM. MANAGER HELP. MISA SAFE.//

"Oh Light, it is you! I knew you would keep me safe! I knew it! You're always there to take care of me -- but this stalker isn't listening! He thinks I'm Kira! Or I'm a mini-Kira! You know I'm not, tell them!"

Female vocoder. //LIGHT YES. LIGHT I SAFE OFTEN. THINK I KIRA. CONTRADICT."

"Cont-- oh, I contradict. Tell him otherwise. Got it. Okay. Misa, you know I love you. I love your hair and your smile and your laugh, and I'd, I'd do anything for you. And I'm trying as hard as I can." I didn't know if he was telling the truth, I didn't know how hard he can try, but he was bugging Ryuzaki more and more about it. "I want... I want to get you out too. But this isn't a stalker. This is really the Kira Investigation Team. They're worried you're Kira. If you were, that would be really dangerous. So they have to be super careful. You can't just get out right away."

Male vocoder. //LOVE MISA MANY. TRY ESCAPE. NOT STALKER. L YES. WORRY KIRA. ESCAPE BAD. WAIT.// 

Misa looked kind of skeptical, there was some scuffling in the room, and Light's unfiltered voice came in to say "I did say that. She did not make it up."

"So you guys... really are L. And you really think I'm Kira. And if you let Kira out, it would be really bad, so even though I'm not..." Misa looked downtrodden.

Female vocoder. //KIRA DANGER. NOT ESCAPE. NOT KIRA, NOT ESCAPE.//

"Don't... Don't panic, Misa! You're going to get out! It's going to take some time, but they're going to clear you, and we can see each other again. You can cook me your special recipe again, and we'll all be back to normal!

L's message window popped up, giving me a word to copy and insert, so the male vocoder dutifully read //NOT PANIC. MISA ESCAPE. NOT SOON. MISA CLEAR. SEE I. COOK RIGATONI.//

If Misa got some special meaning, or lack thereof, I didn't see it. Who knows what Ryuzaki saw. "Oh, I love you, Light!"

Female. //LOVE LIGHT.//

"I love you too, Misa!"

Male. //LOVE MISA.// 

This went on for an hour, with a bit of variation, although by the end they were waiting five minutes to have their proclamations mutilated and rebroadcast. They were definitely at the point of "You hang up!" "No, you hang up!", but usually the phone isn't mentally exhausted by transmitting messages. My brain was ready to ooze out of my ears. But I kept focusing on my task, until Ryuzaki cut me off. If I wasn't thinking of how to form words, I'd be thinking about the contents of those folders. 

But eventually, Light left. It was me and Misa, and I was exhausted. I was shutting down the laptop when she spoke up. "So, uh... Naomi. Light says he knows you. And you really are a cop?"

It was not worth picking out the specifics of why that was wrong. "Um... Uh. Um, yeah."

"And that you guys are nice. I mean, if you weren't making that one up." If her arms were free she would scratch the back of her head in embarrassment. "Like you try hard. I think that was what you meant. So, I... I said some mean things to you, miss Naomi. And I'm really sorry." 

I was too tired to be lied to. And she was too tired to lie, I could tell. She meant it. "I, uh... I, I..." I snapped my fingers, why didn't I know the next word? God, my brain was wrung out. "I know."

"So, like... Are you doing any other Kira Investigating stuff?" She was blushing. "I mean, Light can't talk any more. But you and me, we could... Could you just like stay and talk to me for a while? A bit? I'm, it's scary in here, and the L guy is super creepy, and I missed talking to someone so much, and... You can just talk, right? That doesn't break the investigating rules?"

"...A-about?" Ryuzaki wasn't telling me no. I guessed I had some degree of discretion.

"I don't know! About, about not Kira stuff. Almost everything in the world has nothing to do with Kira, you know! We could talk about any of those things."

She could hear my elbows hit my knees as I sighed. "Tired. Tired and, uhhh... Ummmm... Word."

She frowned. "You're tired... because words. Oh! Yeah, you typed everything. But because of the brain thing it was actually super hard. It probably really wore you out. But, but it let me talk with Light! And it was a bit hard to understand sometimes but you mostly got the gist across pretty good and, like, it was a pretty clever way to let us talk but not pass messages! Thanks so much for doing that, I really appreciate it!"

Yeah, thanks Misa. It actually did mean something that she recognized what a pain it was. I would have loved to acknowledge it. "Nnnngghhhh..."

"Okay, okay, you don't have to say anything, all right! I just, I wanna talk. You can do the yes grunts or no grunts if you want to say you agree or disagree, just, like, just let me know you're listening." She was quivering in her restraints. "Okay? Is that okay, Stalker L?"

"If Naomi agrees." I made a conciliatory hand gesture and noise.

"All right. Okay. I just have something I had to say." She took a deep breath. "I don't get why they changed vampires around! They were cool before!"

I had no idea what she was talking about. My confused grunt let her know I was listening.

"I did some shoots, okay? Interior art for a book, by the guys who make vampires. And I was, like, the sexy cool crazy kind of vampire! Had a messed up seifuku with blood splattered on it and licked a bloody knife! I came up with a whole character for it. But then the dude came back, and he wants another shoot, only they changed the vampires! He told me they didn't have sexy cool crazy vampires any more! They put me in a power suit and had me look dominating! I mean, I pulled it off, I'm a professional, but that, that bothered the hell out of me." She tried to look at me for validation and realized there were two problems with that. 

"...Her name was Aiko. Her boyfriend was a werewolf and she was actually very tender and sweet, but she hung out with vampires and werewolves so she didn't really get that being stabbed was a problem for normal people. And she was always laughing crazily and holding out her knife and saying 'Let's PLAY!' and she had no idea that people thought it was threatening, because she's crazy, right? And she got sprayed with blood just because she was, like, a big fan of how cool blood was. So, like, it was super tragic and Gothic. Right?"

My options were this or stewing over the folders. I was engrossed.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

I shouldn't have been reading it out in public. I shouldn't have been reading it at all, because by this point I'd read it enough to have it memorized. Every time I read it I felt helpless, and scared, ashamed, enraged. My skin flushed, my back tightened up, my knee hurt even though I was putting no weight on it, I felt like screaming, flailing around, bashing my skull against a wall. I was cold, I kept the thermostat in my room at 80 and I still felt like I was standing in a snowstorm. It was poisonous and I couldn't stop.

//SORENSON: I don't even know what L thinks he's going to do. 

KOREYOSHI: He's L. I don't even think that he knows what he's thinking. He wants me to send out my good men up against a guy who can murder from a thousand miles away with your name and face? That's a waste.

SORENSON: Yeah, and Mueller's jumping down all our asses to get in on this, like FBI agents are some kind of supercops who can just fly over and deflect bullets and kill-o-names and solve everything. The goddamn Batman couldn't do anything with this Kira case.

KOREYOSHI: What does Batman have to do with this? 

SORENSON: He used to be a detective before Tim Burton got to him.

KOREYOSHI: How is that even [CROSSTALK] Look, it doesn't matter, whatever! Question is, who are we going to have in Batman's place?

SORENSON: Let me see here, we've got... Randall, Lam, Rosebaugh, Christianson, Parthipan.

KOREYOSHI: Oh, the "Olympia Five?" Nice.

SORENSON: Yes, the FBI believes that people with the moral fiber to testify against their own organization have the fortitude required to really break the Kira case. 

KOREYOSHI: Ha!

SORENSON: Then there's Roeder and Strain...

KOREYOSHI: Yeah, having ties with the Triads could certainly be an advantage in the case, I see that. 

SORENSON: Oh! Heins.

KOREYOSHI: Who?

SORENSON: The FBI believes that if mister Heins has the interpersonal skills to talk his way into my wife's pants when I hadn't received any in six months, he could be able to convince someone to reveal who Kira was.

KOREYOSHI: [LAUGHTER] Oh! Oh, I got a good one.

SORENSON: Who?

KOREYOSHI: Pember. Ray Pember.

SORENSON: First off, I think you mean Ray Penber with an 'N', and second, why do I want to get rid of him?

KOREYOSHI: You don't, really, but you wanna get Misora back, don't you?

SORENSON: Ohhhh! [LAUGHTER] That is a good one. No marriage, no kids, no reason for the gal that cracked the BB case to retire early.

KOREYOSHI: [IMITATING DYING NOISES] [IMITATING OTHER MAN'S VOICE] Naomi... with my last breath... I ask you to avenge me!

SORENSON: [IMITATING WOMAN'S VOICE] Oh Ray! I swear that I'll hunt down the criminals of the world in your memory!

KOREYOSHI: That was Batman's motivation, right? It all goes back to Batman for you. You need to broaden your horizons.

SORENSON: Hey, maybe it's Kira's too. Maybe he saw his parents get gunned down in an alley --

KOREYOSHI: [INTERRUPTING] This is Japan. We have drive-by shamings.

SORENSON: Okay, maybe they had one of those, and he decided to destroy the criminals of the world in response.

KOREYOSHI: I don't really care what his motivation is. He keeps cleaning the trash off the streets, he's okay in my book.

SORENSON: Cleaning up our trash, too.

KOREYOSHI: That, too.//

It was the transcript, but I could hear the conversation if I wanted. I had it on microcassette. It and others. And E-mails, too. All documenting two men sending Raye Penber out to die as if he were a piece in a board game. I had to stop reading after each page because I couldn't see straight. And then when I closed my eyes, I could see nothing else. I had to do something else. Anything else.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

Days had passed. She was clearly becoming more comfortable with me.

"I think I figured it out," Misa said. "Why you guys think I'm Kira. It's not your fault. You heard of the Kuleshov effect, right?"

I had not. My grunt conveyed this idea.

"Oh, you haven't. And, and do you want me to explain it?" She seemed surprised by this, even though she brought it up. Like it was odd someone would not know what she did, but care to find out. I gave her the go-ahead. "Okay! So, uh, like back when they first started making movies and Soviet Russia was making The Battleship Pumpkin to show in every film class, they were discovering, like, everything about how to edit movies. And there was this actor Kuleshov who was, like, super handsome and everyone loved him and made women swoon because swooning was what you did back then, right?" It was more... Actually, was it more complicated than that? I never really convinced myself it was. But I accepted her explanation so far.

"Okay so there's this director, and he makes a movie with Kuleshov. And movies didn't have plots back then, right?" Misa said, but by now wasn't waiting for responses. "So it's just Kuleshov looks at a newborn baby! Kuleshov looks at a skull! Kuleshov looks at soup! Kuleshov looks at a battleship! And everyone is like 'oh, oh my god, Kuleshov is so cool, he's such a great actor, I wanna have all his babies, look at how subtle his performance is, the baby makes him so happy, he's pining with hunger for the soup, the skull makes him see his mortality,' right? But the director tricked them. It's the same clip of Kuleshov every time, with the same face. People, like, they see faces as being what they think they should be, based on what's around them. And, you know, a lot of people don't know about that, and that's why they overact, because they're like 'I gotta do SOMETHING to show the audience what I feel!' Right?"

I think what she was alluding to could be explained much simpler as confirmation bias, but it was an interesting anecdote. Most of us relate things to our profession anyway. There was probably a "Something Effect" for that too.

"So, you know, the Kuleshov effect is an actress's best friend. You gotta know when NOT to act, and let the audience do it for you." She smiled, like she was proud of what she knew, had proven. "So that's what happened to you guys, I think! You're looking for really subtle stuff, so, so because there's Kira stuff near me, you're like 'Oh, that's how a Kira person acts, that's a Kira face!' but I wasn't really emoting anything! Right?"

I didn't say anything for a bit. 

"You don't believe me, huh?"

//MAYBE. STORY GOOD. KNOW GOOD.//

"It was a good story? Really?" she asked. "I mean, I thought so too. I went to acting classes, I took some film school courses. I care about my work, you know? I think all this stuff is real interesting."

"Uh... And, uh, and music?" I asked.

"I mean, I recorded an album, but I'm not really a singer," she replied. "It didn't sound very good. They did a bunch of producing stuff to it to make my voice sound better, so that means I didn't sing very well."

Not what I was asking, but given no particular directive from Ryuzaki, I figured I might as well. I had all my nostalgic college music still, and maybe it did take me back a little bit to a happier time. Turn The Radio Off, '96. Secondhand from Record Surplus on Santa Monica Boulevard, where the song informed me the sun comes up over. Perfect place for a girl fresh from the Land of the Rising Sun to browse what it means to be a cool American and pick out what she liked to adopt as her identity. Bought for the crazy cover. They sang too fast for me to understand at first and I went through the liner notes and listened again and again until I could pick out the words. 

"I don't know why I learned to play guitar, nobody's gonna know who we are and I saaaaaay... I'm givin' up because: I know everything sucks yeah, I know everything sucks whoa, I know everything sucks, and this is gonna be the last time you hear me complain!"

"Ooh, music? I get music?" Misa asked. "I don't... can I not hear music in Japanese because of Kira stuff?" And she stopped, and listened. "I mean, I like it! It's super upbeat!"

Upbeat, trumpety songs about how the world sucks, taking me back to a time when it was safe to say that, when it wasn't right up in my face. I could be whoever I decided to be.

Ryuzaki would later tell me he didn't approve of playing music for her without authorization. I flipped him off. I tried to, anyway, but that's a meaningful gesture of language so it came out as me doing a shadow puppet. I think him and Matsuda both got what I meant. Matsuda and I both agreed, his treatment of her was excessive. He hemmed and hawed about it. He agreed to play some more music for her, eventually.

Honestly, the only thing I had contributed so far was speaking with Misa Amane, and speaking about Misa Amane. No leads had turned out from me retracing my footsteps, there was no fieldwork, and my brain didn't operate on the levels of Ryuzaki and Light. I doubt anyone else on Earth did. All I had to contribute was telling him he was being needlessly cruel.

I don't know why Ryuzaki was pushing for this so hard or what he was getting from it, but he kept it up. I was talking to Misa every day, now. And I was still mad at her, sometimes. Even if I was too professional and too brain-damaged to let it be known. She'd come out on the side of Kira, but in some way I guess I was connecting with her. Like I said, I could have been her. She'd been hurt and she celebrated the man who took revenge for her and that was as far as she'd though it out. She wasn't stupid... not very smart, either... she was passionate, and she thought that was a substitute for reason. She'd fallen head over heels in love with Light at first sight, and became a Kira supporter as soon as there was one reason to like him. But I think I was either breaking her down or getting her to trust me, or both, strange as that was. What's stranger was she was earning my trust too. I felt better when I was around her and I'm not even sure why. Maybe it was because I kept giving up my gun to go in there and now I was comfortable with her seeing me naked. Through her blindfold. So there I was, again. Another day.

//MISA. FEEL?//

"Feel. Feeling, like how am I feeling? Oh, you know..." She let out a weak chuckle. "Locked up for weeks, tied in a straitjacket. Blindfolded. Full of tubes. My neck hurts. I guess that's 'the usual'? I like the music you got me to listen to, with the horns. And I'm really hungry. Like I know the IV keeps me fed, I'm not starving. Just... real hungry. Are you going to let me go?" 

//LIKELY. SLOW. PART GONE.//

"Slowly... you will probably let me out? Like a bit at a time?" That sounded so much crueler when it came from her mouth. "Can you take off the straitjacket first? It's really not comfortable." She sighed. "You don't need to keep me here."

//BELIEVE. MAYBE KIRA SECRET. MAYBE DETAIL IMPORTANT.//

"Maybe Kira secret? You believe me, but... I can't be keeping it secret... You think I was Kira and didn't know it? Or I know something else I don't know how important it is."

//POSSIBLE.// 

"I don't see how I could be Kira and not know it..." she whined. "I'm not missing huge chunks of time. Other than when I got blackout drunk when I was sixteen, but that was one time, a while ago. Can't you just let me go, and I come back in for interviews?

I wished, Misa. But if you were Kira, you were the biggest threat that has ever existed. Even compared to a small chance of you being Kira, it would be irresponsible to let you out, just based on the horrific damage you can do. That's why I'm working to try and eliminate that last bit of doubt in Ryuzaki's mind, and make your conditions more humane. As much as I despise your insistence on Kira's benevolence, I just have to admire your courage in withstanding this unfair treatment. //NOT CAN. KIRA DANGER. CHANCE KIRA = DANGER BIG. SAFETY. WAIT CERTAIN. MISA BRAVE.// God damn it. 

"Kira's in danger. No. Kira is a danger. So if there is a chance of me being Kira it's still too dangerous? And I wait until you realize there's no chance. And that made me brave. That's wrong. It doesn't make me brave." Her head slumped.

Ugh, this wasn't right. The first time I walked in here, I dreamed she would be tortured if she killed me, but this wasn't right. She didn't deserve this. If she was Kira, which I was certain she was not, then she deserved to be killed, but either way, isolation and deprivation like this were wrong. She was hungry and afraid and alone. I could do something about all of those things, if only temporarily. 

I brought the rest of my lunch with me, with the laptop bag, because the masked guards kept stealing it when I left it outside and I couldn't tell who. My sushi panini was gone, but I still had that ciabatta that came with every meal, three or four sectors of orange, and a bottle of spring water. She wouldn't have lost the ability to eat solid food yet, judging by what Ryuzaki was doing. She tensed up when I approached her. All I could say was "Lunch."

My bare hands tore through the crispy outer layer of bread and exposed the fluffy loaf beneath. I tried to hold it out for her, but she just didn't have enough freedom of movement on her neck. I leaned against her, arm draped across her bound shoulders, and gingerly pressed each piece of bread into her mouth. She hungrily wolfed down each one. The crispy crust broke in her mouth, spraying crumbs everywhere. Her hunger was... probably not sated, it was complimentary ciabatta, but it was lessened.

I popped the sport nozzle on the bottle. "Water." I gingerly slipped the bottle to her lips, and I tried to gently pour it in, but I pitched a bit too high. Crystal clear Water streamed down her chin and drizzled onto the floor before her lips latched on and she started chugging. Greedily, she drained every last drop, and the plastic bottle crinkled as she sucked the air out of it. It fell to the floor, in the puddle underneath her dripping chin.

I stood there in silence, leaning on her, touching her with a reassuring presence. "Mmmph! That was... Was that fresh baked?" She was agog. "That tasted... It was amazing!" They say hunger is the best spice, I guess. "I... Did I earn that for cooperating?"

"No. Nnnn... Ah. Uh, hungry. Hungry, ummmmm, lunch."

"Because I was hungry. It was lunch. It was your lunch?" She licked her lips. "Because I can't cooperate any more than I am. I already told you everything I know. I'm not Kira. I didn't lose any time while Kira was active. I just looked like Kira because of the Kuleshov effect. I met Light at Aoyama, we fell in love right away, but we kept it secret for my image. I ditched my manager and went to sleep, and I didn't see the Sakura TV tape. Before I had my own manager, my dad and I licked and sealed the envelopes for my fan club T-shirts, and someone who was obsessed with me would have kept the envelope with my hair and cells. I can't tell you anything else!"

I shook her gently. Reassuringly, I hope. "Believe."

"But you can't let me out. Because Kira is just so dangerous. And you don't think he's making a better world." She sniffled.

"Soon."

"I'm... Thanks. For, you know. All you're doing. I know you don't have to do anything, like, like you don't have to give me food. And you don't have to listen to me without interrogating me. And you don't have to, to be like a human telephone so I can talk to my boyfriend even though it really hurts your brain. And I know that... that we..." Her eyes were shielded, I was at her side, and still she averted her gaze. "We don't see eye to eye on Kira. And it's not... like, a thing. That you know, people can have friendly disagreements about. So you're probably really mad at me. But you're nice to me anyway."

Bread and water used to be the standard for deprivation. For Misa, I'd offered her ambrosia. "Welcome."

She was quiet, let her head hang. A droplet of water was forming on her chin. "Naomi... I tried to shut you up every time you wanted to talk about Raye. I shouldn't have. You can... You can talk about him if you want. I know he's important to you."

God. How to begin? I met him working a case. We were staking out a suspect in this shitty van and he treated me like royalty. He was kind, he was funny but he wasn't a joker. He was a bit old school, but I liked that. I wasn't the most stable person, and he was my rock. He was always there, the smart one, the grounded one. We dated... for way too long before he popped the question, like he wasn't sure if this was a date or courtship or anything like that. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. He told me I belonged at home because work was awful and I deserved to do something that made me happy. He couldn't dance worth a damn. Bought the new "Madden" every year even though it was the same game.

//MET CASE. BAD STAKEOUT. KIND ACTION. FUNNY. NOT JOKE. TRADITION. STABLE. NOT STABLE I. RAYE HELP. DATE WAIT PROPOSE. LIFE TOGETHER. DESERVE BETTER FBI. DESERVE HAPPY. BAD DANCE. BUY GAME.// God. It was all lost, wasn't it? That took me minutes. He'd never light up my life again. I would never even be able to tell anyone what he truly was.

"He... You were in the FBI together. And you met a stakeout." Misa was clearly concentrating, her tone even and solemn. "And it wasn't a good place to be, but he made it good. Because he was nice to you. It made you feel good to spend time with him. He didn't think the same things as you, but he was, like, he was a rock. He was supportive of you. And you were together for a long time before he asked to marry you, because he was a traditional guy. He didn't want a girl, he wanted a wife he would spend his life with. And he thought you deserved a life that made sense where you were happy. And he was a bad dancer but you didn't care. And... and I don't know what the last part means. I'm sorry."

I was kind of amazed. I stammered out. "Fine. Fine, uh... fine. Fine, forget." I held her just a bit tighter.

"Forget about it. Okay." She was almost dolorous now. "He was... He was someone really special to you. I can tell just by, like, the noises you made while you were typing on your phone. And... it's wrong that he was taken away. You shouldn't have to feel that. He shouldn't."

If I was her therapist this would be a major development. Was I? I was crying already, from trying to write for so long. A tear slipped down her cheek to blend in to her wet mouth. I wiped her eye. 

"But I... I..." She choked up. "My.. parents were killed in a robbery, just over a year ago... I was home with them at the time, it happened right in front of me. I knew who did it. I, I saw him. I wanted him to pay. He, it wouldn't bring them back, but it would, I don't know, it would close the wound. But... he was the son of someone powerful. He did this kind of thing just because he could. He hadn't actually killed yet before, but he knew he'd get away with it. The prosecutor wasn't doing anything. He got paid off to say he thought the guy was falsely accused, and people were believing him. Newspapers that were outraged about the murder forgot it ever happened. So the charges got dropped. And then it happened. Kira punished him for what he did to my parents. That's why Kira means so much to me.

"I know I'm not the smartest person, or the strongest, and... I hear people say I'm a terrible actress and just a manufactured star and I'll be dead weight by age 25... but I never felt worthless until then. The people I loved were taken away from me, right in front of me, and I couldn't do anything! I'm sorry that Raye died, and, and I wish it never happened, because you didn't deserve to have someone you loved taken away. But, but, but neither did I! My parents died, and he was going to get away, and, and, and, and I couldn't go on if something like that happened. Kira saved me!" 

She was angry and choking now, and I don't know if she was angry at me or the murderer or Kira or herself. "He was the only one who cared about getting justice. And if it wasn't for him... how do you expect me to live when everything I love can just be taken away like that and nobody can stop it?" 

What could I do? Rub her arm a bit more, I guess? She sniffed the snot that was starting to form. "Raye... I don't want to trade my parents for your fiance. I don't... I don't want you to trade them for him either. I don't. I just... don't want the world to be terrible. Not any more." And then said something important. Not all of the way there, but part of it. "Catch Kira, okay? The real one. Catch him, and, and he can help. Make sure that he only kills really bad people. You can, you're with L, you can double check all his work. And that he doesn't make any other mistakes." She held in a sob. "He wants a better world. If he... He wouldn't want to take people like Raye out of it. But maybe he was scared. Maybe he was so afraid that if he got caught the world would be terrible again, that he didn't think. Maybe, maybe he can go to jail, and he can help people from there, with you making sure he doesn't make any more mistakes."

"...Maybe." 

But probably not.

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

The plan had been thus: Misa got caught, so she gave up her Death Note. I turn myself in and do the same. The killings stop, validating Ryuzaki's emotional investment in thinking we are guilty. I lose my memory, making it impossible for me to incriminate myself, and so did Misa, making it impossible for her to screw up and reveal the deception. Rem waits two weeks and flies forth with my Death Note to give to a new user. Kira begins killing again after weeks, forcing Ryuzaki to think that there is another Kira, and it can't be us. We're released, free and clear. Hopefully, Ryuzaki is powerless to find the new Kira without me. I catch the new guy. I get the Death Note, I get my memories back. The false "kill every 13 days or die yourself" rule I had inserted into the notebook means that Misa and I can't possibly be Kira, we were imprisoned more than 13 days! Ryuzaki thinks this must contradict how he was certain we used to be Kira and stopped when captured, but the facts don't lie. Misa is told where her Note is buried, gets her memory back, immediately does something suicidally stupid, threatens to reveal herself, Rem has to kill Ryuzaki to save her, Rem dies and no longer threatens me, no residual suspicion remains. I am the new L, I kill Misa or spare her depending on how much trouble she is. With access to L's resources and intelligence, I scourge the world of everyone who didn't belong, including the criminals whose names were hidden by their government's new anti-Kira policies, or those who lived in areas without media attention. I become the God of a new world.

Naomi throws a wrench in this plan. 

L's surveillance is incredibly porous. I mean, I managed to get my watch modified with a hidden compartment for holding a tiny sheet of Death Note, whose only other purpose would be to smuggle one single-serving packet of heroin, and he never noticed. I can do plenty of incriminating things without his knowledge, I'm not worried about it. But he knows I could always be doing something incriminating he didn't see. And Naomi has incriminating evidence in her memory, waiting for the vagaries of neurological recovery to make it accessible. If she gets back her unaltered memory, I am dead. No matter what deception I wrought, I told her "By the way, I'm Kira". Too many pieces fit together with that information. Ryuzaki never lets me out. I may not remember what I did but it doesn't matter. She may just kill me anyway, even though at the time I am an innocent man. I have to stay out of custody to ensure I have a modicum of her sympathy, and ensure that her memories don't come back in a useful fashion. I followed her in the same place I did before I sent her to her death, and when her memory was jogged, she filled in the blank spots with my face. Causing her to discard the entire memory as confabulated. If she recalls that Kira must have seen her husband's name in the busjacking, the information of who was there isn't accessible any more. But it takes me more than a week to set this up and verify it, and now I'm inside the time limit. I have no clue who gets the new Death Note, other than that they are not as smart as me, and I need to be in prison more than 13 days. The worst possible outcome would be that I neutralize Naomi's memories, I go into custody, I lose my memory, seven days later the new Kira is so laughably inept that they get caught on the same day they begin. Then I can't be released from prison yet, I can't touch the Note to recover my memories, and they seal it in the warehouse from 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' because it's so dangerous. I would still be a wunderkind next in line for the most powerful unelected position in the world with a model as my girlfriend, which is not the worst fail state, but I didn't want to settle if I didn't have to. The person I was without the Note was weak and cowardly. He didn't deserve any of that even if he would appreciate it more than I would.

Plus, there was Rem to worry about. If I got sick of what a psycho Misa was, and I didn't have my memories, I might do something that got Rem miffed, and then I'd die. And if I was imprisoned but Misa wasn't, Misa was a dangerous catalyst bouncing around. I needed to keep her in danger to keep Rem in line, but keep her in control to prevent her from using her "extra life" on someone other than Ryuzaki. 

So there was no way around it. I was doing it live. No memory forfeiture; I could live without it since the final image we were painting didn't have it and I needed to be able to manipulate things. Misa looked like she was Kira, the deaths had stopped, but that obviously cleared me. There was a risk, yeah, that I might slip up and give away the game. But not flipping my shit at seeing Naomi alive proved I could handle myself. I'd set up a means for covert communication, to be delivered soon. I practiced writing really small -- I was seeing how Naomi did it, of course, and then I was just doodling -- and the Death Note sheet in my watch could take three deaths and circumstances, if I wrote carefully and one of them was short. That was going to be enough.

I walked in to Ryuzaki's latest opulent hotel room, and the whole team was there, chairs facing each other. The stacks of medical records were nowhere to be found; maybe Ryuzaki had realized what a useless waste of time he had inflicted on the entire crew on looking for a Kira Immunity Factor. After Watari let me in, there were a couple of nods of assent, then Naomi said "Clothes."

"You mean, like a wardrobe?" asked Matsuda. "Or... a store? That would require more personnel to run it."

"Nnnngh!" she grunted in frustration. "Clothes!" She held one hand up, then spun her other hand around it, making "vwum vwum vwum" noises. 

"Is that, I don't get it," said Mogi. "A fan?" Naomi grunted in frustration, threw up her hands, and stormed off into her miniature bedroom, tears leaking down her face. Odd. She usually got frustrated with her inability to communicate, but not that quickly or dramatically.

"I think she meant a clothes-washing machine," I helpfully added. "You know, that's the sound they make. So, uh, why are we talking about washing machines?" 

"A laundry. That's a good idea; I had not thought of it," said Ryuzaki as he wrote something down. "And hello, Light. We're preparing to move to the next center of operations for the Kira investigation." He tapped a slide projector behind him, illuminating architectural concept art of a building. "23 floors, with two basements. The building will be designed to be as self-sufficient as possible and run with the bare minimum of non-vetted personnel. Nigh-impenetrable panic doors can turn any room into a bunker. Most of the floors are unassigned at the moment; the investigators are making suggestions as to what they want on site."

What would Good Guy Light Who Never Did Nothing To Nobody want? I had no idea. He didn't deserve it, whatever it was. "Uh... if I have a problem I'll let you know. Wait, if it's a whole building, and you don't have non-vetted personnel... Do you have, like a super-loyal janitor on staff?" If that got me information I could use as Kira then great, but honestly, I wanted to know how the hell that operation worked.

"The center will have two of my seven unimpeachably loyal custodial staff, fully masked and speaking not a word of Japanese," Ryuzaki said with maybe a hint of smugness. "If I had to choose, I would rather the enterprise of L have a limitless supply of trusted and competent janitors than the most skilled marksmen and computer hackers." Huh. Not sure if he was making a good point or not, but when I became L, I wasn't going to smash up his whole system anyway. Not until I figured out how it worked. Sure, have super-janitors with code names like 'Moppu' or 'Bukketto'. 

"Okay... Cool? I guess? How is Misa doing?"

"Misa Amane is doing fine. Her condition won't be a matter of concern much longer," Ryuzaki replied. 

"Good. Because you have to know I'm pretty concerned about it. I'm trying to be understanding because of the needs of the investigation and all, but," get real frank, keep it very real, "Dude... you did kidnap my girlfriend and tie her up for a month. You didn't even want to feed her or play her music. That's pretty messed up."

Ryuzaki looked right through me with his big, haunted, sunken eyes. "'Dude'... Kira stopped killing a few days after your girlfriend was imprisoned. That's what is messed up." The new Kira would have begun by now, and he was waiting for me to reveal some guilty knowledge. Also, dude bro dude brah champ dude Ace Slick bllleeeaaaggghhh.

"And all of us know that you don't think it's over!" I shot back. "You have us in here looking for some Kira Immunity Factor while you wait for news that you know is going to come. Kira is coming back. If Misa ever was Kira, she's not any more. I know it, Naomi knows it, even Matsuda knows it!" I couldn't withstand prolonged isolation like that with my memories, I might crack. But now everyone is mad at prolonged isolation, aren't they, and it hasn't worked, and they aren't going to go along with it. Time to let him think he had the idea I'm feeding to him! "And I've been out this whole time Kira has stopped, that doesn't make you stop being suspicious of me, does it? You don't think it's her either."

"I haven't seen what you've been doing the whole time. I can't rule you out as a suspect," he said, not making eye contact and chewing his thumbnail.

"Hey, Light," Ryuk butted in, "I know you're busy, but can you ask if they can have an apple orchard installed? They can put it on the roof, right?" That shinigami had consumed twenty times his own biomass (necromass?) in apples since I met him. He had to have been the shinigami equivalent of a coke fiend. 

"Well what's it gonna take, huh? Do you want me to get locked up and blindfolded and straitjacketed? Because you know what, I don't think I'm okay with your investigatory methods!" God, it felt good to tell him off for a plausible reason. 

"It does seem a little excessive. There have to be more... humane ways of monitoring my son," Dad said over a newspaper. I bet he asked for a flavorless porridge dispenser in the lobby. I mean, I say give it to him, Dad knows who he is, but come on.

"Hmph. Fine." Ryuzaki pouted. "I have quarters in the middle of the tower. When we move in, they will be attached to yours. You will be at my side for every moment, save when I am performing sensitive business you cannot be privy to, when you will be placed in a locked, monitored isolation chamber until I return." Then he looked to my dad. "After no more than an hour."

Poor, foolish, cautious Ryuzaki. Never willing to make the big plays, always so scared of losing what position he had. If you had done that to me when your suspicions were first raised, I'd be done for. But you didn't. Because you're a coward. 

"Maybe an apple orchard is too much," Ryuk said. "Can they put in a movie theater, like below your room? I can poke my head through the floor and watch a movie." 

"Fine. Sounds great. Dad can help me move in my stuff." Ryuzaki smiled. I knew I was going to be followed much more closely until I moved in; he was giving me time to prepare so I could be caught preparing. But I'd already done everything I needed to. "I'll -- I'll let you know what I want in the plaza. The p-L-Aza." Naomi's guest room was open and she was plainly visible, so she was okay to visit. She was looking at the contents of a manila folder, which she flipped shut when I entered. The same folder she was looking at a lot lately. The one that seemed to get her real, real mad. I gave her a friendly nod and sat down across from her. She slid the folder into her messenger bag, and grabbed a glass of orange juice from the nightstand. 

"Hey. Sorry I have to barge into your bedroom to talk. Maybe you can get a whole apartment in the new building?" 

She didn't say anything. She was looking at a calendar. Little page a day thing on the bedside table -- it was June 18th. 

"Uh... I'm going to assume it's okay. You don't have to say something to send me out -- just wave your hand or something. I just want to be here for you." I had been pretty nice to her the past couple weeks. Buttering her up. Playing a character. Nice, earnest, awkward sometimes but in a humanizing way. Afraid he didn't know as much as people thought, but only willing to confide in special people. Listened so patiently, tried so hard to decipher her useless utterances. Given how much of an abrasive prick Ryuzaki was, she probably liked me more than she liked him. And if Ryuzaki's Kira-proof toy liked me more than him, she wasn't his toy. She was mine. "Hey, I wanted to say again, thanks a lot for what you're doing with Misa. I know it has to be really hard. Both in terms of playing Telephone, and hearing her... say some of the things she says."

"Hmph." she grunted noncommittally. She wasn't barely paying attention to me. So what was she thinking of? Why was she looking at the calendar?

"I mean... I didn't like that part of her either. And you, you have more of a right than anyone to be angry with Kira supporters."

She thought for a moment. Or didn't think at all and just took a bit to get the next word going. Changed gears from standoffish to speaking. "Ig. Ig, ig? Ignorant. Ignorant, uh. Ummmm... Ignorant." Whatever came after that was too hard for her.

"Ignorant. She doesn't... Okay, she doesn't know what she's saying. Like not what it really means, right?" Aw-shucks smile. "That's, I mean, I agree, but it's real charitable for you to see that. I think she might have gone insane if you weren't there to help her, and you didn't have to do any of it."

Hey Naomi. You know what the opposite of Stockholm Syndrome is? It's Lima Syndrome. Captors grow affection for their captives. Especially when it's reinforced how important they are for each other. Misa would do anything for me the moment she recovered her memories of me being Kira, and you'd go along for the ride. 

Change the subject, small talk. "So, you had another knee surgery, right? Are they thinking you're going to be able to go without the crutch?"

"Mmmph." She stared off a bit more. June 18th. She pulled out her pocket notebook. //CATCH KIRA DO?//

Questions were hard for her. She was, apparently, completely incapable of ever using who, what, when, where, why, or how. Something about how she has to ask herself the question to use the word. Sometimes I liked to reinforce how hard it was to communicate with her. "Did I catch Kira? No. Uh, what would I do to catch Kira? No? What did Kira do to... no? What would... What would I do if I caught Kira? Yes?" Whoa, what a big effort I had gone through to talk to her! "I mean, I don't know. Put him in jail to stand trial. Or they'd put him in one of those tubes they have in Area 51 to study what gives him his power. I think the blindfold and restraints they got Misa in wouldn't be excessive."

She narrowed her eyes at me and added another word. //ALONE.//

"I don't really get what you mean." Yes I did, and it was going down a road I really, really liked. "You mean, like, would I kill him?" She nodded. "Well..." I ran my fingers through my hair, leaned forward, made it look I was really revealing a deep, dark secret about myself. "...yeah, I guess I would. Kira's caused so much pain and suffering to everyone, he thinks he's God... if I was in a room alone with him and a gun, I'd shoot him." Look down at hands, seem slightly shocked but also relieved to let it off your chest, "I'd pull the trigger until it went 'click' and then I'd beat him with the empty gun. Oh God, I'm just as bad as he is, aren't I?"

"No." she said as she scribbled. //SAME I. SAME TEAM. KIRA DEAD.//

Yes. Kill the people who deserve to die that the justice system won't touch. You'd be fine with being my second Kira as long as I filed off the name and serial numbers, wouldn't you? "I'm sorry. I haven't lost as much to him as you have, I shouldn't be saying..." 

"No!" She snarled in inexpressive anger. "Lost, nngh, lost! No!"

"No. You're right. Raye wasn't lost. Someone took him away. He probably didn't even care." And I didn't. He deserved to die because he was trying to stop Justice. And you'll die as soon as I'm sure I can't use you to advance the cause of Justice any further, and you won't be mourned for a second. "Murderers who tell themselves they're innocent, that they aren't murderers because they sit high up, far away from the pain they make... it makes me sick." I shook my head. "But we shouldn't be talking about stuff like this when there's nothing we can do. Too depressing. So, what were you reading?"

"Uh. Nothing."

What was in that folder, Naomi? A file on someone or something. Something you wanted to hide from other people, that you didn't want them to know about, that got you thinking about what you'd do to someone who took something from you? Couldn't be a file on Kira, you'd be fine with me seeing that. Someone else who took something from you? Someone else who you're spoiling for revenge on?

What's the significance of June 18th? What does it make you think of?

Might you be compelled to revenge against someone who took away your love?

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

Misa Amane's lodgings had been upgraded. When I entered from the airlock-door, the lights were dimmed to the level of a 20-watt bulb, and she was in the center... handcuffed and legcuffed to a metal chair, wearing a baggy white garment, and her eyes winced shut. Outside the blindfold. 

"Aggghhhh," she moaned, "Why is it so bright in here?"

"Uh. Atrophy." I said. "Atro... umm. Um. Eyes." I set down my bags, there was a lot to do today. I set the miniature table stand up, and laid out lunch on it. Spring rolls this time. 

"Oh, like, I wasn't using my eyes. So they're weak too. That makes sense," she said. Then she heard me begin to undo the shackles. Her eyes went wide, she screamed, and shut them again. "Aaack! God! Why did I DO that? That HURTS! But -- are you letting me go, Naomi? Am I gonna go free?"

I grunted in the negative. "Nnnnghhh... Recover."

"That wasn't a yes... I have to recover first? Are you here for that?" She winced one eye open just sliiightly to let the light in. "Does that mean you guys know I'm not Kira yet?"

"Small." What the heck was up with this last lock, was there gum in it? I couldn't get it off Misa's ankle, I had to undo the end on the chair. 

"Small? I'm a small Kira? I'm... Oh, like, smaller chance of me being Kira. Right? So I can do more since I am probably not dangerous?" She looked to me with one squinty eye expectantly. I confirmed her guess. "That's... better! L's finally listening, right? I said before, I told you everything I know. I'm not Kira, I've never lost any significant amount of time. I met Light in Aoyama and fell in love right away, but we kept our relationship secret because of my idol image. I just looked like Kira because of the Kuleshov effect. I didn't see the Sakura TV broadcast because I snuck out on my manager to sleep. My hair and cells can be found on the fan club envelopes Dad and I sent out before I signed on with Sunshine. None of the other people at the agency expressed pro-Kira leanings and said I shouldn't get political."

I grunted in the affirmative again. She was slowly opening her eyes now, and rather than force my way through words I just chucked the other end of her last shackle forward so she could feel it was moving. 

"I'm not Kira..." she said again, her voice miniscule. "I know you need to do all this for Kira, but, but I'm not..." She took a deep breath, and took a halting, uneven step. Ryuzaki must have had some much better nurses than my hospital, because that plus the wiggle alarm had rendered her able to stand under her own power. She took one step, two -- and fell forward. I caught her, and she looked up at my face in the dim light. I smiled. Her eyes lit up. "Naomi, is that you?"

Yup.

"Wow... You're really pretty!" My nervous laughter almost caused me to drop her, so quickly I situated her back to her feet. "No, I'm serious! You've got like really good cheekbones and intense eyes. Soulful. And they can cover up your scar but, like, I think it looks really cool." Then her hands went to her mouth and she gasped. Almost lost her balance again. "I saw your face! I'm not supposed to see anyone's faces because I'm in like Kira Quarantine, right? Are you going to be in trouble?"

Nope. "Fine. And, ah, uh. Fine. Comfort."

"It's fine? I won't get you in trouble? You want me to be comfortable. Or you are comfortable. Because I can't get out right away."

"Close."

"Whatever, at this point I just want the food!" She looked down at the floor, slowly and carefully assessing her balance before each step. "And... I appreciate you letting me see your face. It means you believe me, and that's, that's real important." She held out a hand for me, and I took it, so she could shakily make her way over to the spring rolls. She crammed the first one into her mouth in a single go, but she dropped the second on the floor. She looked confused, as confused as she could with a whole spring roll stuffed in her mouth, and I pulled the purple squish ball from my pocket to place in her hand. "Mmmh, rhhht," she said in a spray of rice and crumbs. I offered her a paper plate, and pointed her back to her seat. Soon, she was seated with her food in her lap where it was easily recovered if dropped, a bottle of spring water, and before us, Matsuda's portable DVD player and loaned entertainment. I was going to have to give her a little course of physical therapy myself, I'd have to if she ever wanted out, but first she deserved as much of a kick-back relax opportunity as I could give her.

"Ooh, is this 'Magic Knight Rayearth'?" she asked with enthusiasm, though she wasn't looking at the screen very much. "I love that kinda show. I really like all the magical girl, power of love conquers all stuff, but it doesn't really fit my EGL image." Big bite, big chew of contemplation. "Oh, I get it. Because I might still be Kira, I can't see anything live-action that has anyone's face. But anime is fine because Kira doesn't work on voices. That... It makes sense. That's actually pretty smart!" She smiled at me, but it was weak and uneasy. "I'll avert my eyes during the credits if you want. Just to be safe."

It was fine, and I didn't believe it was an issue, and also I held up the DVD case advertising //- Textless intro and outro sequences!// The lights were a bit brighter now, as she acclimated to them, got used to the screen. 

She couldn't open the nozzle on her water bottle with her fingers, but got it with her teeth just fine. She held it with both hands to take a swig, which was smart, and she sighed in satisfaction. It must have hit the spot. "This is nice. I mean... no, it isn't, I'm in jail. But like you all have to be super careful in case I'm Kira, so... I..." She started to sniffle. "I... I know how this had to look for you... that I look like this deadly killer and all. And now you're giving me as much as you can while keeping everyone safe. Thank you for not just... it's good to have someone to look out for me when I can't, Miss Naomi."

"Misora. Naomi Misora."

My name is Naomi Misora.

### 
    
    
    * M I S A *

What's going on? Why am I here again? I'm all tied up and blindfolded! Why? Naomi said I was doing good! I think she said I had most of my motion back! I was eating food and watching anime and had a cot to sleep on, and now, now when I woke up I was all tied up again! L believed me! Naomi believed me!

The door swished open. Who? "Miss Naomi, is that you?" It was, I could tell by how she walked, she had a crutch! She was walking faster than I ever heard her and she yanked the blindfold off my face and GOD it was bright in here. "What's going on? Why am I tied up?"

She held an index card in front of my face for a few seconds. That's right, if it was easier for her to type than talk, it should be easier to write too. Her handwriting was messy and halting and didn't look at all like I'd expect. //L LIE. ERROR CHANCE. NOT ERROR. TIRED WAITING. DISSECT MISA.//

"Okay so there was a chance of an error but it didn't happen and HE'S GOING TO DISSECT ME WHAT THE SHIT?" I started flailing madly in my restraints, which was probably making it way harder for Naomi to undo them, but I wasn't thinking clearly! I didn't wanna be dissected! "Don't let him cut me open! Tell him I'm innocent! You, you know I'm innocent or you wouldn't let me see your face! Oh God are you going to kill me?"

She put that card back in my face again and flipped it over to the back. //ESCAPE MISA. GARAGE. FAST. QUIET.//

I fell forward onto my face, tripping inside the giant sleeves of an opened straitjacket. I whipped my arms back and forth and yanked on the middle until I was able to crawl out. What was I wearing? The same awful, crusty one-piece I spent most of my imprisonment in. I was gonna burn it as soon as we escaped. Naomi was at the door was a gun drawn, and I ran over to her side. I stumbled a couple times, but I didn't trip, because those exercises she gave me worked real well.

"How... How can we escape? I could hear guards out there, and this place has cameras!" I was trying not to hyperventilate. I was scared out of my mind!

She pulled another card from her pocket. //GUARD GAS. CAMERA LOOP. SENSOR OFF. FAST. QUIET.// Shit, this place had sensors too? The door slid open again and she pulled me inside, next to her. The door was like an airlock thing, like the turning cylinder door of a darkroom, and there was an unconscious guard on the floor with his hands ziptied. While the cylinder turned slowly, and I bit my thumb to not talk, Naomi pulled another card out, saying //CARD BEFORE ATTACK. SENTENCE FEW. NOT TIME TYPE. CAREFUL.//

"You had to write these ahead of time so you can't tell me anything that isn't on the cards. okay," I whispered. Vrrmvrrmvrrmvrrmvrrm, the door went. "Did you write down where we go after we get out of here?"

She did. //USA TICKET. NARITA. HIDE.// Okay, we were going to America. My English was so terrible it basically didn't exist, and she had trouble talking, so... I was going to need to learn English real fast. But it was better than being sliced up!

The door rotated open and we made our way past the guard station, where there were two more dudes in masks passed out, and videos showing tapes of me in bondage. I was looking at the floor so I wouldn't trip, relying on Naomi to hold my hand and guide me through the tunnels. We were underground somewhere, somewhere there were boxes and steam tubes and the concrete floor was freezing. I was hiccuping, but it was more quiet than crying.

She pulled me to a stop in front of a door labelled "B-13", with a numerical keypad. //STORAGE. SKIP GUARD.// And then cut out and taped to the note card was a bit of a Post-It with the passcode in someone else's hand. //63819//. It was too precise, too much like language for her to do. I had to do it for her. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. My hands were shaking, they felt super weak, but I got it. Six, three, eight, one, nine, Enter. The door beeped and allowed us in. Inside were boxes, crates, containers, a labyrinth of stacked-up storage. I had no idea how big this place was, but Naomi was moving through with purpose. Her crutch was hanging off her arm so she could keep her gun out and hold my hand, and clearly it was starting to hurt. But she knew where we were going. And we were going to make it out.

And then we heard the door open again behind us. We froze. Slowly, carefully she pulled another note, and this one just said //WAIT. HIDE. I LOOK.// She pointed to a little alley between some boxes. I nodded, and I hid. There was a little crack in the wall, and I could kind of see what she was doing.

She went back, with the crutch and with her gun holstered, to see who was coming. Just when she got to the corner, she ran into the guy, an average looking cop kind of dude in a suit with a blacked out name tag and a big scowl. She greeted him with "Muh, uhhhhh, Matsu--" and I wanted to scream, but I put the whole base of my hand in my mouth and bit it. 

He snapped "I already know what you're up to, traitor!" and he put his arm across her throat. He grabbed the gun out of her holster, and then, then he kicked her out of the way, and then he shot her. The whole warehouse room echoed BLAM, BLAM, BLAM, BLAM! as he shot her four times. She screamed, and then she STOPPED. I couldn't even see her. I didn't think she was okay.

And then he was coming for me. He had the gun and he was coming for me. And I looked around and this little place was SMALL but there was no way OUT and all the boxes were so heavy and then OH MY GOD HE'S HERE HE FOUND ME!

"Did you think you were getting away, 'Misamisa'? Did you think you got to escape after what you did?" He was screaming and I, I didn't know, I couldn't think, I just said everything, and 

"You killed her! Oh God, you killed her!" I wailed.

"What does it matter to you? We know you're Kira, we know you've killed a whole hell of a lot more than two people!" He was shaking the gun at me.

"Why did you kill her? I'm, I'm not, but she really wasn't! You killed her!" I was blubbering helplessly now. Everything was wrong. Everything was terrible. Where was my guardian angel? Where, why, why as I so weak I couldn't help anyone?

"Don't you lie to me! Don't you fucking lie to me and say you're not Kira!"

"But, but I, I can't, I never, oh god, oh please..." I don't know, I don't understand, why does this happen, why are things like this, why is this everything? A box fell or something behind him, and he turned and looked away to it for a second. I tried to run, or, or scamper off on my hands and knees, but there was nowhere to go, and he turned right back and aimed at me.

"SAY IT! Admit it, admit you're Kira or so help me GOD!" He clicked the hammer back on the gun.

"I'm... I'm kuh-Kira... I'll go... buh-back to the cell... cuh-cut me up... get her a duh-doctor..." I sobbed.

"I'll see you in Hell, Kira," he said. And he shot me. I screamed. And I kept screaming as darkness overtook me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--"

"Miss Amane," L's voice was saying over the speaker. "Calm down. You are in no danger."

"--AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--"

"I'm so sorry, Misamisa!" the new guy Matsu-something said. He held the gun to its side. "It's a prop, see?"

"--AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--"

Someone was walking over with a crutch. L continued, "Some deception was necessary in order to verify you were safe to release."

"--AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--"

Naomi walked in. Fine. Unharmed. She looked worried, and she said to me, "Uh, air."

"--AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa..." I was running out of breath and my vision was getting spotty. Someone came from the boxes, some big old guy, wheeling an oxygen tank. I grabbed the little breather mask and I took a long, deep hit of air. I was panting. Everyone was quiet for a few seconds as I stared around with wide eyes. "What... What is going on?" I finally asked when I was only hyperventilating enough to talk. "You, were trying to kill me, we, were escaping, then you found us..."

The cop guy looked sheepish. "It was a prop gun. I'm in the investigation, but I was acting."

"I apologize for any pain that our deception caused you," L's voice said over the loudspeaker. "If it is any consolation, I agree with Naomi and Matsuda now: you are not a Kira of any kind."

"D-deception? Why? I thought I was going to die!"

"Exactly." said L. "Placed in a situation where you had to use your Kira power or die, after having verified you had a functional range of movement to enlist whatever that power may be... you had no idea what to do. Menaced by a man whose face was known to you, who spent time yelling at you to allow you to engage your power, then turned away from you... you were helpless to defend yourself. Thus, you are not Kira."

I wasn't Kira! Kira protects people, I couldn't do that! He knew it! Finally! 

'Matsuda' was rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. Unless the guy with the oxygen was Matsuda, but I don't think so. "I've been talking to your manager, Misamisa. The investigation kind of has to stay involved with you just for your safety, because if it was a crazed fan who set you up, him or Kira may want to come after you. Things are all ready for you to go back to work as soon as you feel comfortable. I'm your new manager just in case it intersects with the investigation, but, Mr. Obu is mostly telling me what to do."

I got to go out! Do stuff! People got to see me again! I got to act again!

"I've mostly furnished your lodgings in the investigation's new headquarters," the old dude with the oxygen tank said. "Your apartment will be with us for your safety, but you will come and go as you please. Please do not mistake that you are returning to a prison."

He was giving me an apartment! Probably better than my old one where it was drafty as hell because I had no idea how to yell at landlords to make them do things and I moved in without shopping around for a good place! And if it's in an investigation headquarters, probably someone has to clean it up before the trash starts forming drifts!

Naomi walked over to me and held up an index card. The writing on this one was much more feminine and WAY messier. Which only made sense, that L guy probably rewrote all the cards to make them say exactly what he wanted. It said. //SORRY. LIE MISA. SCARE MISA. HURT MISA. BETRAY MISA. MISA HATE?// 

I jumped at her and hugged her so hard I almost bowled her over. "Why would I hate you? You got me out! You convinced him I'm not Kira! I'm not gonna be locked up any more, I'm fine, you guys are going to help me!" I was light as a feather. I could have run a marathon. I was crying again, out of joy. "You really came to the rescue! You saved me!"

### 
    
    
    * R U L E S *

**35a**. If a Death Note owner accidentally misspells a name four times, that person will be free from being killed by the Death Note. However, if they intentionally misspell the name four times, the Death Note owner will die.

**Clarification** : If the Death Note is loaned to another, who intentionally misspells a name four times, the WRITER will die, and not the owner.

**Testing Request** : What happens if someone who neither owns nor uses the Death Note gives a face and incorrectly spelled name to a user and instructs them to write it four times?

**X-2a**. Humans who have no way of envisioning the face of their target, such as those born blind or who have damage to the visual cortex, cannot use the Death Note even if they have their own distinct methods of remembering individual identities. Humans and gods of death who have lost their sight later on can only make valid entries in the Death Note of those they remember the faces of.

**X-2b**. Mechanical devices cannot be made to create valid entries in the Death Note as they cannot envision human faces, even if they can be made to write or print correctly spelled names on the page. A human could use a stamp and ink to create a valid entry, but not press a lever that causes the stamp to press down on the Death Note. Prosthetic hands only function if there is absolutely no mechanical articulation between the motion of the organic arm and the writing utensil.


	3. Bad Company

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

Today was moving day. The pLaza (ha ha) was open for business, a skyscraper-bunker that could withstand any urban assault or deprivation. The nerve center of the Kira Investigation, the most important criminal investigation in human history, operable by skeleton crew. Once I killed L and took his place, it would be Kira's new throne. My new throne. From which I reigned over my perfect world as God.

So of course I had to get a ride there from my dad.

All my clothes and furnishings were loaded in the back of the SUV, my brand new computer was in the passenger seat, and I was in the backseat. Dad didn't usually like it that way, he felt like a chauffeur. He'd been pretty distant the past few days, barely made eye contact while we loaded up the car. Mom and Sayu were excited to see me off, though.

"It's weird," I said, trying to make small talk. "It's kind of like I'm going off to college... only I know my roommate's going to be a lunatic, instead of just fearing it."

"Hmph." Dad didn't say anything. His eyes were on the road.

"Geez, dad, don't worry. I'm still going to To-Oh. This is just a sabbatical." I laughed. "Hanging out with L is probably worth transferable credits for something."

"Hmph." All right, he didn't feel like talking. I looked out the window, gazing at the trees and lawns of Japanese suburbia pass us by. Why were the trees and lawns of Japanese suburbia passing us by? We should be getting closer to downtown by now.

"Dad? Where are we going?"

Dad grunted again. His grip on the steering wheel was white-knuckled. 

"...Dad, what's going on?" The concern in my voice was not an act.

"How did you do it, Light?" he asked without looking back at me. "How did you go in and see those people, look in all our faces, and act innocent?"

Here's a question I'm rapidly asking myself: Why are the child-safety rear locks turned on? Ryuk, normally content to hover over the car and pretend to be a low-flying airplane, shoved his head through the useless door latch and cackled.

Dad didn't comment on my frantic attempt to open up the doors. He wasn't even looking at me. "Matsuda looked up to you. Did you know that? You are a college freshman and he looked up to you. Your intelligence. Your sense of justice. You lied to him. You lied to the woman you maimed. You lied to the girlfriend you sent to take the fall. And you lied to your own father."

He skidded to a stop in a muddy field near an overpass. He threw his arm out to the left to catch my computer tower so it didn't smash itself against the dashboard. And I pleaded "Dad, come on, you're sounding crazy. If you have suspicions, why don't we just keep on going to the tower and tell Ryuzaki, and he'll tell you I'm fine. Or he, or he won't! But then everyone will get a say in it, right?"

"Looks like he gotcha, Light! Looks like he gotcha good!" Ryuk crowed. 

Seatbelt undone, he turned to the backseat, holding a gun. "Light. At first I hoped you could be a force for good in the world." Oh shit, how long had he known? "Then I thought you could be controlled." Wait a second. "Then I thought you would at least surrender with dignity. I asked Ryuzaki to treat you humanely." If he's about to execute me, why did he save my computer from falling over? "But now I see the son I raised is an animal. A selfish, rabid beast who has to be put down." His teeth were gritted. His hand was shaking ever so slightly. I looked shocked, but now my concern was fabricated.

This was a test. Ryuzaki put him up to it. He thinks I'll try to save myself with Kira powers. Since Ryuzaki is a fool, he doesn't realize that this test proves nothing -- I couldn't Death Note my way out of this if I tried, but Ryuzaki is convinced Kira is some sort of mutant X-Men power and not a device with a warm-up time. That gun is loaded with blanks. Dad is going to shoot me, he will be fine, it will reveal I can't save myself with Kira power, and then Dad congratulates me on passing the test.

Wait another second.

If he shoots me in the back seat from the front seat I'm still going to die! I need to be at least a meter away from the fake gun for the paper wadding not to hit me like a bullet! That's how Bruce Lee's kid died, Dad must not know how a blank pistol works!

My concern was no longer fabricated. My eyes went wide and I scooched on my ass into the far corner of the seat. No good, I was 50 cm away from the barrel at most. "Dad! Dad, dad, dad, calm down! Calm down! You don't want to shoot me, do you?" That was the problem, nothing I could possibly do would dissuade him from shooting me, because he had no idea that it put me in danger. But I had to keep talking! I had to buy time! "I'm not Kira! I'm not -- I'm your son, right?" 

"I don't think he cares, Light my buddy!" Ryuk cackled. "Humans kill their own family all the time!" Ryuk was SO many steps behind what was happening right now.

"I think you stopped being my son the moment you killed Lind L. Tailor," Dad gravelled back at me. That was impressively cold. He pulled back to 55cm, maybe. "He wasn't even a criminal, did you know that?" he added with disgust. "America doesn't keep Death Row inmates secret. He had terminal pancreatic cancer. He volunteered for his family's sake." He was still talking. Good. He had to. Maybe he had to give me an adequate wind-up time, even if the Note still wouldn't help here. And he was giving me emotional justification for his actions. He had to act like himself or break the fiction. He wouldn't do anything that resulted in him not shooting me...

"Okay! Okay! Dad, you, you got me! I'm Kira! Just... just put the gun down! I've been, I've been made now, you can take me to jail. You can tie me up like they did Misa." All of these words were useless, but I couldn't at like I knew they were. "What-- are you going to walk over to the tower painted in your son's brains? I don't, I don't, are Sayu and Mom going to run up and hug you and tell you what a great job you did?" I hung my head in my hands. It got me closer to the barrel, but it also got my face pointed at where Ryuk was sticking out of the door. With the eye Dad couldn't see, I made the most exaggerated winking motion I possibly could without moving my head. If Ryuk was this far behind, he might write my name in his Death Note to claim me when he thought my death was imminent! 

Ryuk made a ludicrously exaggerated grin and OK sign before sliding out of view. One problem gone. Dad sighed. "No they won't. I'll be killing myself when I'm done with you."

"So they get to see the crime scene? The family car painted with blood and chunks of gore? You think Sayu wants that, Dad? Come on, just put the gun down..." Come on, come on. Don't put the gun down. But don't break character, because if you break character, I know it's all fake. Ryuzaki told you that you had to give me time to use the power. Make it believable, don't let me realize you're just sitting in the car. Pretend to care about something you don't think will happen so I won't find out about something I know about and used to manipulate your actions. Man, I led the best life.

He popped the childsafe locks and gestured me to get out. "Get out there. Get on your knees."

"Dad, you don't have to, you don't need--"

"GET! ON! YOUR! KNEES!"

I didn't know where the cameras were, so my smile of relief was very short, right as my face got up against the door.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

I had to strip down to get through the security checkpoint every time I wanted to enter the new Casa de L and emerge in the windowless metal lobby. At least Ryuzaki had to go through it as well. He'd seen my scarred body before -- we shared hotel rooms, most weren't opulent enough for two showers -- and even though he didn't care then and didn't care now, I shivered with a bit of shame. When I emerged from the checkpoint wearing only my undershirt and yet to put on my jacket, and saw Misa and Matsuda standing there, I squeaked and instinctively retracted my arm. Ryuzaki did nothing, he just kind of softly clinked when he took a step.

"Naomi!" Misa squealed in glee. Her backpack bounced back and forth as she sprinted at me for a tacklehug. Then she pulled back, holding me at a distance, and said in a faux-serious tone "I mean, loyal bodyguard Shoko Maki. Right?"

"Uh. Hmm. Right."

"This place is cool!" she raved. "My apartment's bigger than my old one. All the meals are catered. There's even a do it yourself print shop! I made a congratulations banner for Light when he shows up, can you help hang it up?" Wow, had she ever bounced back. She was still underweight and didn't look healthy at all, but she was dang happy about it. I couldn't put on my jacket with her holding my arm, though, so I was pretty uncomfortable. She noticed. "Oh, hey, are you... Naomi, you don't have to hide your scars like that! I think they're really cool!"

Again with this? I scoff-laughed.

"No, seriously, I'm not just saying that!" she pouted. "Like... Okay, the one on the wrist here, I would cover that with some concealer. That one's not cool. That could have been done yourself. But now you know I mean it about the rest of them! Like, you have this, like an energy bolt going down your arm. And it's all bumpy and jagged," she said while rubbing her fingertips over the scar, "so it looks interesting, and it says that you, like, you survived something that did a lot of damage and you came out stronger so you're really tough. Other cultures used to draw blood and make scars so they could look pretty, you know!" I didn't know what this was. Stockholm Syndrome? A successful building of rapport with the prisoner? Little of Column A, little of Column B?

"Uh, Misa..." Matsuda said in a buzzkill parent voice, "Do you think you're making Naomi uncomfortable?"

"Oh! Right. Sorry." she let go with a sheepish blush, and I got my jacket back on. "Anyway, uh, the new place is cool. Although it's a 40-minute job to get through security so I gotta plan to do as many things as I can in one trip." She had on a choker, jewelry, what looked like three layers of blouse, lacy bridal gauntlets, a skirt, leggings, a ripped mesh cover over the leggings, and go-go boots. Yeah, I could see 40 minutes. "And here! I made this for you." She produced a plastic sleeve, with laminated, multicolored index cards in it. I turned over the first, and it said //WHERE: I am asking a question about a location!// and underneath, a cutesy sticker of a redheaded girl looking through binoculars.

"I got the idea from the whole escape thing!" she continued cheerily like she wasn't talking about a time she was put in terror for her life. "I hope it's not disrespectful, but I remembered it seemed like some words were a lot harder for you to use, so I figured, you say YOUR word or two, and you hold up the card that goes with it. And there are pictures so your brain doesn't have to know what the words mean and confuse you!" She was beaming with pride. "I got who, what, when, where, why, how, do you want, if/then, either/or, past, future, and opposite. Although, I had to use what was already in the Sunshine Starlet Sticker Book for the images, so that's why the picture for 'why' is Yoko Yokoko holding a giant carp. I got a guy who does chibi art, I could get you cards with a little cartoon you on them, but I figured handing out people's pictures was a no-no." She held her arms behind her back, looking expectantly for my reaction. 

I... figured it was worth a shot. I took the top card, displaying //WHERE: I am asking a question about a location!// and asked "Light?" From the context, Ryuzaki would have got it anyway, but shush.

"Light should be in screening behind us. He'll be out momentarily," he said. I was surprised he hadn't commented on anything else, or left.

I shuffled through the stack and thought I pulled out 'when' but saw myself holding 'either/or'. Couldn't do it too fast, had to focus on the pictures, or it would be routed through the defective switchboard of my brain. Still probably faster than the alternative. //WHEN: I am asking a question about time!// This one had Misa sitting on an hourglass. A bit of the sticker's edge was torn -- probably had a scythe originally, for the Gothic memento mori aesthetic, that she'd ripped off. "Light?"

"I understand that you are testing your new assistance device but I just told you he will be here momentarily," Ryuzaki said, not even rolling his eyes.

I gave Misa the thumbs-down and smiled. They looked like they'd help at least a little. She looked confused, but then happy.

Light's stuff got through security before he did, his furniture and clothes and computer, and it gave us ample time to hang the meager //CONGRATULATIONS ON NOT BEING KIRA, LIGHT!// banner over the lobby. Misa couldn't really help much, it seemed difficult for her to stand or balance for extended periods.

Ryuzaki watched impassively before asking "Misa, what is this about?" without really looking at her.

"Well, I just figured," she said, counting on her fingers. "You're not going to let him in if you think he's Kira. You did a whole thing with me to make me think I was gonna die unless I used Kira blood magic. He's my boyfriend and you asked a bunch of questions about him and you were worried he could be giving me coded messages. I haven't been allowed to see him in 2 days ever since you faked me out. So you probably had a dude pretend to shoot him to see if he'd use HIS blood magic and didn't want me to blab it was gonna happen. And then he didn't do it, so you scared the bejeebers out of him, and he would appreciate some congratulations and cheering up!"

The cylindrical entrances rotated into place, allowing Light and Soichiro Yagami to emerge, with Light complaining "I can't BELIEVE you almost killed me, Dad!" 

"Son, I let you out of the car," Soichiro protested. "You were in no danger!"

"Ha, see? Also yay! Light!" Misa squealed, and tacklehugged her boyfriend almost to the ground. "It's you! It's really you!" She rained smooches on his face while he struggled to retain his balance. "They pretended to shoot me too, but now they know I'm not Kira! Everything is gonna be great!"

"Ack... MisaIcantbreathe..." he choked out.

"Ooh! Sorry." she said, gingerly letting go and stepping back. "Anyway! I have a real big announcement now that you're all here." Heels together, deep dramatic breath. "I would like you all to know, that you are looking... at the newest member of the Kira Special Investigative Team!"

Light, Matsuda, and Soichiro said roughly the same thing: "Really? You?"

"Yup!" she bowed grandiosely. It seemed odd how cheerful she was, unless you could see this wasn't cheer, this was confidence. Happiness at certainty. She was satisfied in the way one is when solving a puzzle. She was doing something that caused the world to make sense again. "I want to do my best to help you catch Kira. Kira won't make a perfect new world if he keeps making mistakes. He needs... oversight and responsibility, whether he wants them or not!" I bristled. Then I wondered if I should feel more angry. "And whether you believe in his new world, or you don't, the first step either way is catching him, so we should all work together!" Raye, would you want me to not let a slight against your death stand? Or would you want me to be kind and charitable to someone who hasn't completed her journey of moral development. Yeah, I ask myself that, and it's the second one.

"Okay, but really? You?"

"What... I can help!" she pouted against the murmured doubts. "I helped Naomi just now, she can't make cue cards. And I figured out they were gonna try and shoot Light! And... I can be a spokesmodel for the investigation! Put a palatable human face on things! You know that so far as I've seen, only two of you have any charisma at all, and one of them can't talk."

"I allowed Miss Amane onto the investigation because she has a skillset that we lack," Ryuzaki butted in. "I am not certain that her talents will be useful, but I am certain that I won't regret having them available. And I am certain that, at this moment, she is not Kira and her sentiments are heartfelt. This is important... as before her release, Kira resumed his killing." He paused, like he expected a dramatic music sting. "Hm. Speaking of... Light. How did your trip with your father go?"

"He almost killed me because he never heard of how Bruce Lee's kid died. It wasn't great," Light snapped. Kid was a lot more testy today. I don't blame him. 

"Yes, but we've proven that you don't have the ability to use Kira's powers when your life is threatened. This is not a situation I would like to present you with while bound to you."

"Does this mean... we're not going to bother sticking together because I've already been tested?" He was way too hopeful. Light, you have to know the answer to that one.

Ryuzaki grinned and held up a pair of handcuffs with a two-meter chain, pulled from his pants. "It means you get to choose wrist or ankle."

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

I chose ankle so my arms were free. He swallowed the key. After we tripped three times trying to get to the elevator, Watari had to get the spare key and chain our wrists. 

Ryuzaki's room was Western-style, as much as it could be while being completely unfurnished. Blank white walls, concrete floor, and a single empty desk. The only distinguishing feature was the metal isolation cylinder he was going to lock me in when he needed to do eyes-only business. There were various candies laid out on the desk, but those weren't going to last long. Not even a sheet on his California King-sized bed.Oh great, we're going to be sleeping in the same bed. I am going to be making a lot of sarcastic comments to myself for the next month or so, aren't I?

"What's this," I asked him, "Were you waiting for me to tell you how to decorate? Because I'm fine with any theme, just as long as you have one." I walked forward with my box of textbooks, but about halfway there, I reached the end of the chain and yanked Ryuzaki off his desk and toward me.

He didn't verbally react -- pulled by his wrist he skidded to a graceful stop as if that was his normal mode of locomotion, not even spilling his bowl of M&Ms. "What do you mean, Light? This was how my apartment looked before this case started."

Oh this was awful. I didn't look at him while I started stacking the overpriced textbooks. Would have to make or buy a bookshelf later. "Is this some kind of ploy to get me off balance and reveal I'm Kira? Are you messing with your new roommate? Or are you just messing with me because you can?"

"Hm." He slipped a butterscotch into his mouth. "Yes."

"Light, tell him he needs a fruit bowl," Ryuk added. Is there shinigami rehab? 

"'Scuse me, let me just slip under this now," Misa said, ducking the taut chain to deposit my two garment bags on the bed. Behind her, Matsuda wheeled in the computer and desk on a hand truck. "I slipped in a special surprise in this one for you," Misa whispered conspiratorially.

Instantly, Ryuzaki was between us, smiling like the cat that caught the canary. "A special surprise, you said? I wonder what that might be?"

Since she actually wasn't Kira and didn't remember the Death Note, there were two things it could be. Wordlessly, I unzipped the garment bag and dropped the stack of girlie magazines on the bed while staring at Ryuzaki -- on the top were two brand-new Misa Amane photo collections. That actually was unusual; I would have figured she would throw the other ones out, out of jealousy. Or scratch out every other model's eyes. Perhaps she was trying not to make too big a fuss. 

"Ah. Of course," Ryuzaki said as he picked up one of the collections. "Miss Amane, even if you have given him a nude photograph, I'm going to have to inspect it. Your boyfriend has no privacy with me."

"I get it!" she said. "That's why it's all my commercial work. Very tasteful."

He started flipping through the pages. "I'm unsure if I would call a vampire schoolgirl tasteful," Ryuzaki... Quipped? Observed? How snarky was he? He may have been easy to lead but in situations like this he sure was hard to read. "Anyway, thank you for your help, Miss Amane. You and Matsuda may go now."

Ryuk looked at the photobook and pointed like he recognized someone; it must have been a photo where the shinigami Gelus was following her. 

"No way!" Misa pouted. "I haven't seen Light in over a month, and only got to talk to him through Naomi, and it was mostly about me being locked up BY YOU!" She stomped her little foot. "I don't care if he has no privacy, I'm hanging out with my boyfriend and you can't stop me!"

"Matsuda?" Ryuzaki asked.

"I'm not doing anything but assembling a desk," he said from his place on the floor. "Naomi's in physical therapy, but I can hang out with you guys." She was in 'therapy' every day. I don't think it counted any more, after a certain point you've recovered and it just becomes 'going to the gym', but she insisted.

"Hmph. Fine," said Ryuzaki, even though this was clearly not the answer he was looking for. "Don't worry about unpacking his things any further. I'll do that when I inspect them. But now that we're here, Light, I want you to see something." He went to the far side of the bed, and with a graceful little roll-tug, he yanked me forward and sent my splaying with my arm out onto the bed, knocking the magazines everywhere. He pulled up a file box about the time I got my balance back. 

I grabbed the tether with both hands and I pulled for all I was worth, because I was acting like an innocent person and what me and an innocent person had in common was that we were pissed! But he hopped off the ground and he rolled into the force somehow, and he didn't lose his balance at all as I dragged him onto the bed with me. 

"There you are," he deadpanned. "This box contains information on Kira's latest killings. I was hoping you could take a look at them."

"I... Ugh, fine," I said. I was fine. Right now, Ryuzaki didn't know what the point of this exercise was. He thought I was Kira and I could be tricked into revealing guilty knowledge. But as far as this investigation was concerned, I wasn't Kira. I was in the same place as everyone else. I only needed to make the smallest adjustments, for which I had already prepared, and other than that I was innocent. He could be suspicious all he liked, but either he was going to find the Death Note and conclude my alibi was 13 days of airtight... or I was going to have nothing to do with his death.

I flipped through the clippings and samples he gave me. Murderer. Rapist. Embezzler. Murderer. Securities fraud. Larceny. Japan, Italy, America, America, Canada, Japan. The list went on. Misa sat on the bed and nuzzled up to my shoulder, cooing at my touch. A quick peck on the cheek was all the attention she needed before I could resume my task.

"The targets are still disproportionately Japanese," I said. I got the info about Japan easiest, there was no denying that. "Kira seems to be going after more white-collar criminals here in Japan... These all seem to be recent criminals too, not those who got off or got short sentences. It could indicate a change of tactics or focus. Once he runs low on accessible violent crimes, he shifts to financial crimes. Or he overheard someone angry at the Nikkei and altered priorities."

"Hm. I noticed that," Ryuzaki said. "There are multiple possible explanations. We need to do more to narrow it down."

"Yeah, these aren't Kira," said Misa. The heck? She pointed at an entry on the page I was reading, and added, "Well, okay, the other ones might be, but he's not. 'Reagen Taylor, resigned from the board of directors of Amalgamated Flourodynamics, amidst fears of an upcoming indictment for insider trading. He was found dead in his home two days later of a medically inexplicable heart attack.' Kira... makes mistakes sometimes. But he's about criminals. Nobody actually accused this guy of anything yet. He could have been a fall guy, and business regulations are complicated. More complicated when they're in French or something! You can break them without knowing you did anything. I don't think Kira would do that because he doesn't know if the dude did anything wrong."

"Miss Amane, Kira's character is not an admissible factor," Ryuzaki said.

"No... she's right." She was wrong, I would kill such a man, because fall guys aren't innocent -- they just shield others who are also guilty. But she made me realize something. "Think about it. This company isn't big, and it isn't Japanese. He wasn't indicted for a crime. His resignation wouldn't be significant news, and it wouldn't be reported as a crime. It would be reported in regional business papers. Does Kira read regional business papers? From Canada? It's not his mission."

"...Hmph. A valid point. This Kira may not be the same one we sought before." He smiled, just a little. He probably suspected the same. He was testing me to see if I would point it out... and now he was going to get to make fun of me for having my girlfriend figure it out.

"Yaay!" she cheered. "Score a point for Team Misa!" God damn it, Misa. I was looking over each entry in detail, and she got there first by skimming for things using only her emotions. I high fived her but I didn't enjoy it.

### 
    
    
    * M I S A *

I wasn't as bad off as Naomi was, at least if I understood correctly, because I wasn't in a coma and I had like the best prevent-atrophy-nurses and a wiggle alarm to keep my muscles from totally wasting away. But I was still a stick, I could see ribs under my blouse, if this was Europe I would be legally prohibited from modeling. I could stand, but not for very long, and I hoped nobody noticed that all the hugging was for stability. I went out a couple times to get shit from my apartment, but I had to do it in disguise -- if the tabloids saw me there'd be no end to the stories about me being anorexic. 

Luckily my new apartment has a world-class physical therapy center on site! Fancy that. And a print shop and a laundromat and a commercial kitchen and a surgical suite and a data center and a briefing room and a recording studio that I was never going to use and like a target practice range with some crazy security thing to keep you from taking guns out and, for some reason, a movie theater. It made the omissions more glaring.

"So, you know, now that I am essential member of the investigation, I never got a chance to ask for something for the headquarters," I said. "You guys totally need, like, a salon kind of thing. Where you do makeup and wardrobe." That sounded selfish, didn't it? "I mean, not just for me! What if people need disguises or special outfits, or, I don't know, they need to get a haircut but the barber keeps talking about classified stuff?"

I had on my one-piece swimsuit, a very nice new one I got for free after I ceremonially burned the old crusty one I was imprisoned in and told Watari to put the ashes in acid. Which he didn't do, I know that, but it felt good to say. I kept trying to enticingly lift the fabric for Light, show off a little tantalizing glimpse of skin, but I didn't want Ryuzaki to see so it was like a red-light green-light kinda deal. Anyway I had a terrycloth robe over it and Naomi was already on some kind of weight machine, getting attended to by the physical therapist, who had on a Daft Punk full-face helmet and didn't speak any Japanese so he had to just use hand gestures. It made sense that a building this big, you can't run it with just investigation guys, so you need like a way to keep all the people who keep things running safe. Just like a movie, for everyone on the screen there's a dozen makeup artists and gaffers and lighting techs and key grips that get them on the screen. So anyway I was waiting to get told what to do. Also, Light was here to support me, and that meant Ryuzaki was here too because they were chained together. 

"Hm" Ryuzaki mumbled, mostly to himself. "I could see the potential utility in that. I doubt we would end up getting any use out of it, though."

"Bah, you're just saying that because I'm the new guy. Busting my hump." Wait. Was it hump? That didn't sound right.

The physical therapist came over to me, guided me over to the therapy tub. Well, it was clearly a Jacuzzi, but it was built like a metal bathtub so it looked medical and didn't LOOK like a one-person Jacuzzi. Separated only by low walls with pool cleaning supplies on them, I was visible to the rest of the room, which is why I had a bathing suit on. I figure they didn't want a bunch of hidey places around. The guy motioned for me to just get in and have a seat. 

"You know, if you are a full member of the investigation," said Light, "My father's birthday is coming up. We can't all sign a card for him, for security reasons, but we're all drawing part of a picture. Even Ryuzaki," he added while elbowing the guy. "You want in on it?" 

"Sure!" I said while I slipped in. Man, Light knew how to make me feel like a welcome member of the team. "July's a good month for a birthday, too. Nicely spaced from all the gift holidays." The water was perfectly attuned to my body temperature, too. "You know how much it sucks to have a birthday on Christmas? Everyone's like 'Oh, hey, this is like a birthday present AND a Christmas gift, ha ha! And then it turns out all they got you was a--"

Oh no.

I knew my muscles were weak, but -- They had me hooked up with a tube thing, there was no way they were going to let me out of all those restraints every time I needed to pee and Naomi still couldn't supervise me all the time when they started letting me out and I guess the water was so warm and I was still atrophied and it, I, I...

I pissed myself. Right in the tub, right in the same room as everyone. My eyes went wide and my mouth clammed up. Awful, hot shame seemed to blossom underneath my skin. Maybe -- maybe nobody noticed! Maybe I could just sit here and hide forever. I could disintegrate and Light wouldn't see me like an awful baby. I could just die and then people would think I soiled myself after death.

"...What? Get a what, Misa?" Light asked.

"--ohyouknowlikesomeblankvideotapesorsomething," I mumbled. My voice was so weak it could have been beaten down by a gerbil.

"Huh. That would be pretty disappointing," Light said. How was I going to get out of this? Oh God, could he tell? He couldn't tell, could he? Oh God he's a super genius he can figure it out! "Well, I promise, on Christmas I'll buy you twice as many presents as you buy me." If he could tell, he wouldn't let anyone KNOW, he's too caring to do that, but I didn't care about anyone else knowing as much as him!

"Mmm," Ryuzaki kind of purred. "You know, Light, Christian families often give more presents for Christmas than birthdays. You should probably temper her expectations. One hundred and fifty percent present budget." I don't know if I was Christian, Mom was Christian and I mostly wore the crosses for her but I didn't think about it that much but I guess like we cared a lot about Christmas but was he making fun of me or does he know how to do that and OH GOD LIGHT IS LOOKING AT ME IS HE GOING TO ASK ME A QUESTION okay no he's turning back to Ryuzaki and--

"It's not a super precise measurement, Ryuzaki. I'll be making up for her lost time, anyway. Double the presents is easier for her to verify, it's the only logical choice. Right?

"Yeah!" I chirped. "Yeah, yeah, sure! Super logical!" Oh God now Ryuzaki was looking at me. Oh God, now Naomi was looking at me! She was staring, like, like, no no no no don't say anything well okay you can't say anything but don't call any attention to me!

Naomi got off her machine thingy, still looking at me. Like, I don't know, her eyes went wide for a second too, and then she was, like, she recognized something. Oh god, she knew! She grabbed her crutch and she started walking over to me. She knew! "Ah. Uh... Uh. And, uh," oh god what are you saying what are you saying is this the fuse on a humiliation bomb burning down what's going to come out of your mouth are you going to get Light to notice me? "Er... and, ah, Cold? Cold?" She kept walking toward me, toward Light and Ryuzaki.

"Cold?" Ryuzaki asked. "Do we... do you want to make the room more cold? Or are you cold, and we have to make it warmer? I'm in a T-shirt and I feel fine."

"Nngh!" She grunted in frustration, her crutch was still tapping against the floor. "Cold! Cold, and, and..." And then she staggered, and her crutch went flying. She fell to her left, and she, she... She threw out her arm to grab the little wall thingy... and she knocked a bottle of pool cleaner off the wall into the tub. 

"Shit!" I shouted, and I... I didn't launch out of the tub. I yanked the cap off the bottle, hopefully it was something with a powerful smell, and THEN I launched out of the tub like I'd been catapulted. It HURT, and I collapsed to the floor when I landed, but I made it! "Is that caustic? I can't get a chemical burn! Did any get on me?" I was out! Perfect excuse! A reason to clean off!

"Naomi," Light said. "You need to be more careful around the pool. Ryuzaki didn't put in bath mats, that's just asking for a slip." He was making sure she wouldn't be hurt, but...

But she didn't slip. I saw it. There wasn't a puddle or anything. Her crutch didn't touch the ground. It was a pratfall. She did it on purpose. She was giving me an out. She must have, must have recognized what happened, somehow. Had she been there before? Light didn't have to see anything, I didn't have to say anything. Dignity intact.

"Thank you," I whispered as she helped me up, while nobody else could hear.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

I was still keeping an eye out for her, but by now, only half of my job was being Misa's friend. Either me or Matsuda had to be with her at all times she was roaming, but that still meant half the time I was doing something else. Right now, I was alone, in the darkened computer room, analyzing. 

We had a new Kira. Our only lead, our only hook for the difference between the old and the new, was the death of Reagan Taylor formerly of Amalgamated Flourodynamics. AFD was a Canadian corporation, a subsidiary of a much larger firm located in Vancouver. Every record would be in either English or French, and apart from Ryuzaki, I was the best English speaker around.

No. I was the best English reader and listener. I was not an English speaker any more. 

None of us doubted that the new Kira was still Japanese. That had some implications -- Kira's power could go anywhere in the world undetectably to kill, but to latch on to another person to use it had to stick to the same tiny island? Was it a location in Japan that granted the power, that someone else found? -- but they were not for me to plumb right now. AFD was a medium-sized company that was made up of a bunch of even smaller companies, each of which manufactured legacy components, replacement parts for systems no longer in production. The problem: nothing AFD made was for Japanese systems, none of their deals were with Japanese companies, as far as they were concerned Japan didn't exist.

Raye was hafu. No, biracial, that's the word. He used to joke about how his mom was always surprised that Americans didn't think about Japan more. I think that's how it is with every country... except America, of course. Everyone has an opinion about America. I sure did, ever since I was a kid. I guess I was the reverse of those American kids who think life over here is just like anime and think we're just the coolest.

No deals with Japanese companies, no replacement parts for Japanese products. One Japanese employee I could see, but who lived in Canada 20 years. Electronics and valves and chemicals first made in the 1970s. Reagan didn't seem to know any Japanese people; he seemed not to know practically anybody. Why would Kira know about him? And why would Kira care? The parent company, Midland Carbide Labs, had a single contract with Mitsubishi to provide non-stick coating for older manufacturing equipment. But Reagan had nothing to do with that deal, as far as I could tell. Maybe news of his indictment just traveled through the grapevine to Japan. It had to have travelled fast, the rumors of the insider trading case were only just starting to surface when he resigned. 

Or maybe Misa was right. Maybe Kira made a mistake.

Every other killing he'd done, that we knew of, was completely typical of him. We gained no new information from them. He didn't show off, he didn't taunt L. He just shifted a bit more to white collar crimes, in Japan, and a single one in Canada.

What if this wasn't ideological? What if he's not going after Japan's white collar criminals because he's out of violent criminals, but because he hears about them more?

Kira tells me to kill myself and never be found. I try to do this, but I can't. His power fails. I can't because of two things: I am followed by a person I did not know of, and I jump at the wrong time to be taken out by the tide. The first is outside my control, but the second is not; it contradicts everything else about how I acted to ensure I would not be recovered. I still died. They brought me back.

So maybe Kira's power is time-locked. I had to jump then. Kira didn't know what the tides were. 

So maybe Kira needs to plan in advance. He was able to spread out the times of death of those he killed, periods longer than a person could go without sleep, but maybe it was a hard, non-negotiable lock on time. Reagan was told to do something but couldn't. 

What would Kira want Reagan to do before he died? What would he have told Reagan to do... that resigning prevents him from doing?

I looked. Reagan had nothing to do with brokering the Mitsubishi deal itself, nor did he make decisions at MCL. BUT, he oversaw a plant. Chemical engineering. They make their special legacy nonstick coating. If Kira calls Reagan up, uses his dark voice while looking at his picture, and says 'Reagan Taylor. Kill yourself by falling into the mixer, halting production for weeks. Do it four days from now,' and he does... Mitsubishi can't get the chemical they need. Whatever they need it for is delayed. Stock goes down a bit. Maybe someone else gets a contract bid instead of them. Stock goes down more. Somebody competing with Mitsubishi is happy.

Reagan is implicated. Forced to resign. He attempts to carry out Kira's command, but he cannot do so. His keys don't let him in any more, the guards don't let him pass. Maybe... he still has to die. So he just has a heart attack. That's a chilling thought. If more had happened to save me, I would have just had a heart attack. 

Kira is running a game. Kill criminals brazenly. And kill inconvenient people very, very quietly. That's the thing about Kira. People die all the time already. It's nearly impossible to track a killer who can choose any method of death he wants, and actually does so without showing off. So if you show off your kills of criminals, but you're very subtle with your corporate sabotage... it's going to be very hard to find you.

Until you make a mistake.

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

Ryuzaki, Matsuda, and I were seated at the large bank of computers that dominated the central control room, Ryuzaki and I were poring over medical records and obituaries to see if there had been more financially-advantageous deaths Kira had caused but had managed to make look like an accident, Naomi and Aizawa were doing the same with paper records even though they knew they weren't going to find anything. Naomi was squishing the ever-present purple ball and Aizawa looked like he needed to develop a nervous habit to match her. Aizawa was chugging coffee after coffee and Naomi looked like she was thinking her jug's worth of orange juice wasn't matching it. Even Misa was getting in on it: she was at my side, looking over the small share of deaths that had to do with show business, in case there was a pattern there an insider would notice. It was cute to see her try and help. The way it was cute to see a five year old try to fix the family car with a plastic hammer.

The elevator opened to show Mogi and my dad, looking grim. "Hey Chief, hey Mogi," said Aizawa while Naomi gave a wordless wave. "We're apparently reading every obituary on Earth, come to join us?"

"There's no progress, then?" Dad asked in the manner of a doctor who's going to cut life support.

"Well, we figure it's business related. We can see plenty of patterns..." He sighed, spun in his chair, and stretched. "...problem is, none of them match each other and almost none of them actually exist. What was that word for what paranoid people have where they see patterns that don't exist? I wanna say, you know, that thing, 'aphasia', but I know it's not it."

"Apophenia," Ryuzaki, Ryuk and I said in unison. Naomi arched an eyebrow at me and Ryuzaki, and Ryuk laughed his gravelly laugh. I don't know which one I found stranger: that he would reflexively give someone the word they were looking for, or that he would know the word 'apophenia'.

"Yeah, what he said. This entire investigation is giving us all quadrophenia."

"Hm." Dad sighed. "Then maybe this is for the best, then. We just spoke to the Deputy Director. It appears that Kira has made an offer to several politicians... as long as the NPA doesn't pursue him, he won't lay a hand on any politicians. So that's that. They caved. "

"What?" we all asked in shock. I was as surprised as they were -- offering clemency to politicians for security? I knew I was relying on the decoy Kira not being like me, but still, I was disappointed. I felt like he was sullying my good name.

Dad looked like he wanted to say more, but he kind of cut himself off. Naomi was rising to her feet, scowling. hissing her rage through clenched teeth. Her shaking hand held up a card saying //WHO: I am asking a question about a person!// with a sticker of Misa Amane with her face obscured by an apple like in Rene Magritte's painting. "Or... Order!" she snarled, and I think she was actually trying to keep her voice level. 

Dad was slightly taken aback. All of us had seen her cry in frustration many times, but never this enraged. "The... orders come from the Deputy Director. The NPA's chief administrator in the Kira case. But they've been approved by all levels of the NPA bureaucracy. The police have abandoned us."

L had looked slightly shocked, momentarily, but now wore the same impassive expression he always did. Matsuda, Aizawa and I all still looked shocked. And Naomi Misora didn't look shocked, she looked livid, inflamed, like an old wound freshly torn at. "K--Kita. Kita! Kitamura!" she barked, and she went back to breathing through her nose like a violent cartoon bull.

"Ah-- yes," Dad said. "Deputy Director Kitamura Koreyoshi made the call. He told us our careers would be over if we continued to pursue this case." He put his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. "His authority is purely administrative, over employees of the police agency. He'd be unable to lay any sanction against you, miss Misora!" She was choking on her words by now. Nobody really knew how to deal with her outburst. 

Except me, anyway. I tapped Misa on the shoulder. "Misa... Naomi looks like she's having a really hard time right now. Maybe you could...?" I held up my cuffed arm, indicating why I couldn't comfort her myself. She nodded dutifully and went over to the source of the angry sobbing. I wanted this problem to APPEAR to be dealt with, and I wanted this problem to absolutely not be dealt with.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

Everyone was staring at me. This was an important watershed moment to the case and now instead everyone was staring at me, wondering if I was going to start screaming, wondering if I needed to be escorted out, turning up the intensity of the Shame Stare. I was so embarrassed, blushing so hard my face was about to just start bleeding. Tears were streaming down my face, they felt like they would sizzle and turn to steam when they touched the metal floor.

Misa was at my side, trying to put her arm on me and console me. She had no idea what to do or how, just saying "Sssh, sssh, it's okay, it's okay. I'll help you, okay? I'll tell them what you want to say. And I won't editorialize."

I couldn't believe it. That bastard. That unbelievable bastard. That writhing piece of human fucking garbage. Kitamura sends Raye to his death, he makes a deal with the worst serial killer to ever live, and he says it's all okay so long as Kira doesn't kill him? Just keep hiding from him, throwing other people into the abattoir to put off going in yourself? He laughed. He laughed! He asked for undesirables in the FBI to eliminate and then he LAUGHED! Why? Because they weren't Japanese? Or because they hadn't personally sucked his administrative cock?

Say it. Tell them. Tell Misa and she'll tell them. Kitamura is a coward who's willing to build a wall of corpses to hide behind it.

"Kuh... Kuh..."

He sent Raye to his death on purpose because he's a God damn coward! A slimy, odious piece of shit who deserves to have his eyes gouged out!

"Nnnggh... Mmmmhhh..."

He can't be trusted! He'll do anything and sell out anyone to save his own crusty skin! You can't count on him to let this go, he'll use any avenue he has to turn against us if Kira pressures him again!

"Ahhhh..."

SAY IT! YOU USELESS IDIOT! YOU BRAIN-DAMAGED IMBECILE! SAY IT! SAY THE FUCKING WORDS! EVERYONE IS STARING AT YOU! YOU'RE MAKING A GIANT SCENE! THESE MEN ALL LOST THEIR CAREERS AND NOW IT'S ALL ABOUT YOU AND YOUR USELESS BROKEN BRAIN! TODDLERS CAN SPEAK BETTER THAN YOU! JUST SAY IT! SAY ANYTHING! TELL THEM HE TOOK RAYE! TELL THEM WHAT HE DID! TELL THEM WHAT HE IS!

TELL THEM ANYTHING!

My head fell into my arms on the table and I wordlessly sobbed. Useless. Broken. 

"She, she's right to be angry!" Matsuda stammered out. "This conduct is deplorable! Our careers are over if we pursue the case? I would have resigned anyway after this! I'd rather be Misamisa's fake manager, I'd rather sell meat on a stick out of a cart than be a part of that organization!" That wasn't what was important, Matsuda. He took Raye. He helped have Raye killed. This isn't just deplorable, he's complicit!

"Uuuhhhhh..."

"That's exactly what Mogi and I concluded," said Chief Yagami. "We're tendering our resignations tomorrow. We wouldn't want to work for an organization we can't respect." Stop it, no, that, okay it's important too, but he had Raye killed, he set up the deaths of all the FBI agents, he did it on purpose to protect his own people! That, that's important! You should talk about it! I need to, you should know the information! It's not about respectability, it's about being complicit in murder!

"Nnnnhhhh..."

Aizawa stared down at the floor, letting out short half-laughs of disbelief. "I... have a family." He turned to Ryuzaki. "Is there any way I could--"

I cut him off with another enraged, incoherent outburst as a angrily ransacked my own brain, trying to find a single coherent word. I could have had a family too. I wanted a family. Someone deliberately chose to take it away so I would be more useful to them!

Misa was ignoring what the men were doing, trying to rock me back and forth like that would calm me somehow. She had no idea. She was freaking out herself. "Naomi, I don't know what's wrong," she whispered, "and now I'm kind of scared, but, like, if any of the things I know how to do would help just point to something and I'll figure it out."

"...Look, if you can't handle this, maybe you should leave." Aizawa said, switching gears. "Not, like, the investigation. Go upstairs. Take a break or something." I was trying to take deep, cleansing breaths. I was panicking. Couldn't speak at all. Had to calm down. Kitamura was trying to undo another family, but losing my shit wasn't going to help. 

Ryuzaki glowered at me for some reason. Long pause, waiting for me to scream again. Then, "Hm. Aizawa, if you're concerned about your income, perhaps--"

Yeah, yeah, you have a giant trust fund you pay us out of, we know! I slammed my wallet on the table, flicked out the debit card, tried to slide it his way but only hit an empty coffee cup. Aizawa was fine, everything was fine, we can get over THAT.

"A card? You... want to buy something. No. On the card. The name? Oh, the name is fake!" Misa said. "Oh, Ryuzaki set it up for you. So he can set up Aizawa too. Right?" I never drew much on the account, but I could have bought an entire Death Star with it and not even trip an automated cardholder alert.

"...Yes. Of course," Ryuzaki said. "That much is obvious. I pay her, and I bought this real estate in downtown Tokyo, didn't I?" I had no idea what emotion he was conveying. I was trying not to freak out. Any more than I had.

Aizawa arched an eyebrow. "...when were you going to tell me about that, Ryuzaki?"

Chief Yagami saw disaster incoming. "Aizawa, you know Ryuzaki's not like that. He's just indirect. He would have said something, right?"

"You weren't acting like a guy telling someone he has a huge pile of money and he shouldn't worry. You were acting like you were going to say something I didn't like. What was after 'If you're concerned about your income, perhaps'?"

"'Perhaps I could set up an expense account for you,' of course. I was going to tell you as soon as Naomi's outburst ended," Ryuzaki said. "I was afraid that perhaps you would be too prideful to accept a handout. There was no way I would force you to choose between your job and your family. But the scene she made prevented me from doing that."

"Hey!" Misa snapped. "Don't be a dick! She has aphasia, okay? It's hard!"

"Nothing about her disability impedes her control over her emotions," he said, and everyone was uncomfortable at that. "She will not be leaving the investigation, but if she cannot handle a situation like this, perhaps she should recuse herself."

"It's a real good thing you weren't gonna force me to choose between my job and my family," Aizawa spat, "because the way you run this ship I don't know what I'd pick."

I won't be leaving? Like he owns me? Like he can make fucking decisions about my life, solving his stupid Riddler puzzles? I was already at my wit's end. I couldn't take it. Someone else deciding where I would go. I bucked Misa's grip on me and stood up to punch Ryuzaki in the mouth, because violence was still a language I could speak, but Light stood between us with his hands out. "Hey, hey, whoa! Easy, easy! Everyone just calm down! Nobody wants this to get out of hand, right?"

I hissed my anger through my teeth and stormed off.

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

It was the most perfect, most amazing, most wonderful display I ever could have asked for. Strife in the team. Reason for Naomi to hate Ryuzaki. Reason for Aizawa to hate Ryuzaki. Reason for EVERYONE to be upset with Ryuzaki. "Light, I don't know, she was really upset, it might have had something to do with Raye!" And it was obvious who the man in her file had been, the one that got her thinking of revenge. Kitamura Koreyoshi. A man whose face I'd seen.

If he were to die, that would be suspicious. If he were to die in a way that couldn't possibly be Kira, it would be suspicious in all the right ways. It will throw the new Kira off his game, badly. Leave the NPA open to assisting me as I pretend to hunt Kira. And Ryuzaki is blunt and manipulative, but he never gave Naomi the speech about 'you can leave if you want, but poor poor Raye is unavenged'. She physically threatened him and he didn't react. She's a valuable little toy to him. He won't risk giving up his Kira-proof investigator to something like premeditated murder. And that will drive a wedge through the team like we've never seen. And that will put me closer to control.

But she's not Kira-proof. I just can't kill her. I don't have to manipulate only the person who's dying. I don't just control my victims, I control everyone. The Death Note can only make people do plausible things, but last time, I didn't give it enough time to work her up, bring her to it naturally, so she was on the very far end of plausible behavior. Not a mistake to make again.

I know how horrified and violated you felt last time, Naomi, so let's give you some freedom. Give you a couple weeks to work yourself up, find the means to make you do this and really make this your own! Why, you won't even suspect you're my puppet this time! Because next time I'm on the toilet, and Ryuzaki can't see into my lap, I'm writing this in my watch:

//KITAMURA KOREYOSHI. AUGUST 24 2007 10:18 PM. MURDERED BY APHASIC WOMAN.//

### 
    
    
    * M I S A *

Tensions were high in the Tower of L. Everyone was pretty mad at Ryuzaki for... honestly for just being a dick in general. And Naomi was really mad at something but she couldn't say what and she hadn't left her room in almost two days. And I used to be really mad at Ryuzaki for locking me up for weeks but realized I mean it wasn't all THAT bad and he did have to be careful and I did look pretty suspicious if you didn't know all the facts. Most of what I was doing all day was eating, I had to get back to healthy weight, so it wasn't like I had important shit to do. Anyway Light suggested I should help because I was charming and approachable and photogenic, so that's what I was going to do!

As soooon as Naomi let me into her room.

I banged on the metal panic door to her quarters another time. "Come on, let me in! I just wanna talk!" Nothing. "Come onnn!" Nothing. I knew she could hear me, the intercom was on when the door was shut. I kept accidentally lowering mine. "I brought cupcakes!" Nothing. I slumped against the door and waited. I wished Light was here. What would he say? Something genius, I bet. "...Matsuda left me here, I don't have an escort. I'm not allowed to leave without you."

Click. Hiss. The door retracted.

I was expecting her to be curled up in the corner crying and eating ice cream, but that's just what I would have done. She was a lot stronger than that. She looked fine, really. She was fully dressed, the room wasn't a mess, nothing had been thrown about, her face wasn't red. Okay she wasn't wearing makeup, and she'd been crying at least some, but she never wore makeup, because she has always been crying at least some.

Because of... her condition. 

"So, uh, Ryuzaki said you were right," I told her while I found a place to set down this plastic container of cupcakes. She had a little coffee table in the sitting room area, in front of the black leather couch, and there was a photo album there. Only the first two pages looked like they had anything on them. "About the new Kira. Some old business guys have been dying of conditions they already had, but at real inconvenient times. Mogi found some stuff linking them. And some, like, industrial accidents that happened at the worst moment. They think some company called Yotsuba is benefiting." I took my boots off, though I'm not sure if I'm supposed to in a Western apartment, and I took a seat on the end of her couch. She wasn't looking at me or anything. Just looked real far away, in a real bad place. "So... I mean, I guess that's two points for Team Misa, right?"

There's a real specific feeling, a real specific look, when you're mad or you're upset and someone says something funny and you try not to laugh because you're trying to stay mad. Where you're so disappointed in yourself for feeling levity. That look danced across her face, and she turned further away to try and hide her expression. That felt... God that felt good. I wasn't used to this. I wasn't a person who was strong enough to help other people. But, there it was.

"I mean, I don't want to talk mess about my boyfriend, but it looks like he picked the wrong team to be on!" I continued in a silly tone. "Ryuzaki and him have, like, half a point. At most. If we score again we should say we get to rename the building after our team. I like 'The Misadome'." Her hand was over her mouth now and she was trying not to giggle. 

She fixed me with a not at all threatening stare and mockingly said "Misa?"

"Yes, Naomi?" I said, fluttering my eyes innocently.

"Uh. Naomi," she said. That was her... Oh, she wasn't addressing me, she was referring to my name. Got it. 

"You want us to be Team Naomi?" I asked in mock disbelief. "But I'm the marketable face! You're the strong, silent one that everyone wants more of because you're so mysterious." She scoffed... but she sat down on the other end of the couch.

We sat there in silence for a little while. Her ceiling fan was off balance, so it made a little vwum noise. 

"I'm not kidding," I said. "I mean, I'm kidding about scoring points. But you, me, and Matsuda, and Light... we're a team. You saved me, like, a bunch of times. Light is always watching over me and being super nice and super smart. And I mean, I didn't get to see it at the time, but Matsuda was helping too. It feels really nice to have a lot of people, like, really care about you being happy."

She sighed, and she had her face on her knuckles. "Umm... Ah. Would."

"We... all care about you, too!" I said. Was she saying 'that would feel nice if I knew what it was'? I had to assume. "Everyone's on the investigation together and they, you know, they look out for each other. Light says he thinks you're really smart and brave, and he's the smartest, sweetest guy in the world." I sighed, just imagining what it would be like to drop him on this couch and snuggle with him right now and feel his hands on my neck. "I think I'd probably go crazy of not for Light, but he's right there for me, just like--" MISA WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING RAVING ABOUT HOW GREAT IT IS TO HAVE A BOYFRIEND YOU ARE SITTING IN FRONT OF A PICTURE ALBUM OF HER DEAD FIANCE!

I couldn't tell what she was thinking. Bad? Probably bad. She looked glum. "--just like you are!" I said. I mean... it wasn't wrong, I guess. "I know, you're probably sick of me thanking you. I just really think that you're a cool person. Maybe like... if I didn't have Light, I'd only be 60% crazy." AAAAAAAAGH MISA WHY ARE YOU DIGGING THIS HOLE DEEPER WHY CAN'T YOU THINK OF ANYTHING BUT LIGHT! 

But she didn't tell me to stop or that I made her upset. She couldn't. I knew there was so much going on in there that she couldn't get out. I wished I knew what was in there so I could, I don't know, I could tell someone and they'd be able to help her and I could know what to talk about other than my still-alive boyfriend. 

"So, that Ryuzaki, he really is a jerk, huh?" I said trying to change the subject. She had said three words so far and it was still difficult. "But, like, I don't think he's more than a jerk. He's not trying to hurt people, he just... kind of doesn't know how to not do that." I started fidgeting. "I'm real lucky that he has Light attached to him, so he can be looking out for me all the time, and--" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA MISA WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

I couldn't help it. I started to cry. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I just... I'm trying to make you feel better and all I can think about is raving about my boyfriend and it's probably making you feel way worse and I don't MEAN to it just slips out sometimes and I'm really bad at this and and..."

She just shook her head and patted me on the shoulder. I mean, this was how things were supposed to go, I was weak and she was strong. But I'd also taken her pain and made it about myself. I felt awful. "I... I know it's hard. But whatever you're upset about has to do with Raye, right? Can you... I don't know, tell me? Show me?"

She pulled closer to me on the couch and pulled the album over. Only two pages filled. They really... thought they were going to have more time to take pictures. Some of them had captions written underneath them, but in English, I couldn't read a word. 

At the top, one picture of her in a graduation cap and robe, and one picture of him. She said they met on a case, so these must have been their graduation from cop school, and they didn't know each other yet. Then... there's a bunch of FBI agents including the two of them posing solemnly. That must be that case they were on, and they aren't supposed to make goofy faces for the record. After that was... a fancy restaurant? I didn't see either of them in the picture of diners in gowns and suits eating in a marble room where someone was playing a harp. And next to that was... I guess a less fancy restaurant? It was darker and people were sitting in booths and the walls were covered in like traffic signs. I had no idea what they meant. Maybe one was their first date? Maybe they went undercover at one, or used to work there? I don't know.

I looked over to Naomi to ask for an explanation, but she couldn't speak. She was weeping, that way she does, but she was just looking at the pictures, and any words she tried to form didn't go far. 

The next one, they were in the forest. They had on face masks, but pulled up, and they were back to back, each holding two weird plastic guns. Smiling at each other like movie characters. Then I think Naomi's at a ballgame, and Raye is taking the picture? Her cheeks are puffed full of something and she looks surprised. Here both of them are on the beach, in sunglasses. And then there's a fence, the kind you find on a farm. Maybe they fixed it or built it together? There's a picture of an older Japanese woman and white man, in Texas hats, behind a giant turkey dinner spread. Maybe it was like a farmhouse and they fixed his parents' fence. Or maybe they were 500 miles apart. Here's Raye with a dead rat, or some kind of icky bundle of fur, on the end of one of those grabber claws and holding it up like a trophy of conquest. 

Then there's one I can recognize: Raye was in the park, kneeling, with a ring extended. Naomi had her hands on her mouth, shocked. His proposal. It's the ring she had with her now. Then she gots down on her knees, hugging him and crying happy tears. Then she's looking straight at the camera and she's running toward it kind of joking-mad. Then a picture of a fancy church surrounded by a garden. And then nothing.

How far apart were these taken? How many more would be here if they knew what the deadline was?

I looked back at her. She still couldn't speak. Just had her hands over her mouth, like when he proposed to her. Her eyes didn't look the same. "That's... why it's so bad, isn't it?" I said. "Because... because I can't figure out what you're doing. And you can't tell me. And that makes it worse." God, I wished I knew. I wished I knew exactly what she thought when she saw them. I wish I knew what had her thinking about Raye so much and getting so angry. I wish, I wish I could tell everything happening behind that sad strong face. But I couldn't. She could try really hard and be really clever and I could make little cue cards and even then she'd give up lots and lots of detail. Nobody would REALLY know.

"I want... I want to learn," I said. And I did. This was something I could do, just because nobody else could. Light would be proud of me, for trying to give back to a person that had given unto me, helping his respected colleague. "Maybe I can't do a very good job, or maybe, maybe nobody can. But when you're with me, it's not just that you're my , like, my fake bodyguard, okay? I wanna be your interpreter. I think I probably have more practice with you than anyone else. I wanna make sure that... as much as anyone can, that people understand you."

I leaned over and I hugged her. "I'm sorry. What happened wasn't right. And we... we can't really make it right. But we have to do anything we can to make sure it doesn't happen again. Even putting up with Ryuzaki."

And then... then I don't know. I just wanted to let her know I was on her side, so, I... kind of kissed her. On the cheek. I didn't know what to do! It was like when you call the dentist and get ready to hang up and say 'Bye, I love you!' She gave me a little smile, like a little one, like it was some small thing that was no big deal. I was blushing red as a stop sign.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

It was a day and a half before the next time Ryuzaki called a meeting. A business concern called Yotsuba was using Kira's power to sabotage their competitors, either while maintaining Kira's killing pattern, or just working in parallel with Kira. Without police backing, the course of action to take wasn't yet obvious, and it was up to the investigation lead to take it. Ryuzaki didn't say what the meeting was about, and while we had time to kill, Team Misa went over some scripts to pick her next picture -- a Gothic Lolita crime thriller about the baroque yakuza. Our meeting's purpose became obvious when two new people walked in. A blonde American woman in sunglasses and a fur hat that I thought I recognized, and a blonde European man with the sleaziest shirt/jacket combo I'd seen in a while. 

"Who let these jokers in?" asked Light.

"Those two," said Ryuzaki as if he were stating patently obvious fact, "are the newest members of the task force."

"Name's Aiber," said the man, and it looked like he really had to resist reaching up to wipe imaginary cocaine off his nose. "I'm a con man."

"I'm Wedy," said the woman, clearly trying to impress us with her nonchalance. "Professional thief."

"Huh." Chief... Soichiro Yagami sounded displeased. "Ryuzaki, are you just letting anyone on the team now, or do they have to be blonde?" he deadpanned.

I tried to start writing something, but Ryuzaki started talking. "These are not common crooks. They are uncommon crooks. Aiber is a lifelong con man. His unparalleled social skills allow him to befriend and gain the trust of any target." I was starting to sense a pattern, but said nothing. "We'll use him for infiltration. As for Wedy, she's a thief who specializes in cracking high-end security systems. As proof of that, she was able to enter this building without setting off a single alarm."

"You expect us to work with criminals?" Soichiro scoffed. 

Again, I tried composing a response, but Wedy started talking again. "Aiber and I are the most skilled people in our fields. If you prefer, call us 'professionals of the underworld'. It sounds a lot cooler."

"Wedy and Aiber have made it so far without ever being arrested," said Ryuzaki, "so there is no worry that Kira will be able to find them. If Kira is no longer an individual, but has ties to an organization as we suspect, their services will be invaluable."

"Ummm... Crime..." I stammered, trying to buy time.

"I don't know about this," said Light. "I don't think we can really trust people like this as part of the investigation. How do we know they won't turn on us if they get a better offer?"

"EVERYBODY SHUT UP!" Misa shouted, pounding her hands into the table. "Er, sorry, Light, but we were kind of going too far. Naomi is trying to say something! Naomi, please." She'd been kind of overeager ever since she pecked me on the cheek. I knew exactly what it meant, it was a completely normal gesture of friendship, but apparently I couldn't convey that understanding either.

I dashed out a note as quickly as I could and handed it to Misa while everyone stared in awkward silence. After a couple whispered clarifications, she spoke my words, "Ahem. //CRIME MONEY. If/Then: CON BEST > MONEY ACTOR. FBI WORK WEDY.// So if you are the best con you get more money than the best actor, that's what you meant, right?" It was. 

"You're the one with the, the what's it called, the aphasia, right?" Wedy said, snapping her fingers to aid her recall. "I thought I recognized you. Last April, right?"

I nodded. The Cavella operation. Wedy was doing surveillance on that case. We had the warrant to wiretap Cavella's conversations, we just didn't have the ability to do so without tipping him off. We needed bugs in the house. That's where the surveillance expert came in. She was good. She was undetectable. She could get info on people, at least that weren't looking.

The Yagamis were talking about not trusting criminals and having a little tete-a-tete with the new help. Misa almost interrupted them again, but I waved her off. The note I was writing wasn't meant for this conversation, and I didn't care about this conversation. I waited until it was time for Wedy to get to her quarters and handed her a folded paper.

//KITAMURA KOREYOSHI. POLICE BOSS.

FOLLOW. SCHEDULE. SECURITY SMALL.//

"Schedule? Make it for him?" she asked. 

I groaned. Handing people notes that they would silently nod and understand was going to be beyond me forever. I had her hold out the note, held up //WHAT: I am asking a question about something's nature or identity!// and pointed to //SCHEDULE// and then //WHERE// and //WHEN// while pointing at //SECURITY SMALL//. 

"Gotcha. If I have time." She made a finger gun at me before she left. I hope none of the other ex-cops suspected what I was doing. Given how little a shit they gave about what I said publicly, I doubted it.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

Wedy gets to work quickly. Yotsuba is a big enterprise; they have a home office, seven subsidiary offices, and two dozen buildings they own which might hold a nefarious Kiradoer gathering data with their research apparatus, and that's just the greater Tokyo area. Too much for even the world's greatest break-in artist. Fortunately, they make it easy. Few companies or individuals think to spend much of their security budget on hiding their security budget. Spikes in discretionary spending for facilities in three places: Minato, Sumida, Yokohama. Very nice. New contracts with security companies. Also very nice. He may be moving around, or two expenses are legitimate. Or all three.

That isn't likely. 

First step is easiest and requires no breaking nor entering. Directional laser microphones, pointed at panes of glass, are able to detect microscopic vibrations in the glass created by sound waves, and reconstruct the sound that made them. Finding latch points for enough microphones, from enough angles, is difficult. But it's not impossible. Wedy is a god damn professional.

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

Most of the time Misa hung out with me, we did nothing in particular, other than stare googly-eyed and get stared at googly-eyed, respectively. If Ryuzaki had a bit less self-control he would be making gagging noises.

God, I hated him. We slept in the same bed together, bound by the cuffs. No matter how he laid down, his feet never went anywhere but my face.

But Misa was now pushing for us to all, quote, "be friends together". So Ryuzaki would be involved in our date night. So would her escort Matsuda. We all sat at the table we'd set up in my room and figured we would play a nice, friendly game together, and we would bond and grow and yada yada. Until Ryuzaki turned back from his dresser with a green translucent visor and a deck of cards. Those never indicated anything good. 

"The name of the game is Texas Hold'Em Poker," Ryuzaki said in his best grizzled gambler voice. "We play for the highest stakes imaginable. And by that I mean each of us has 20 chips, and the last man standing will get --"

"--Kakyoin's soul back?" Matsuda said with a little grin. 

"No, a cheesecake from our kitchen," Ryuzaki deadpanned. "But even I have no idea how our chef makes them so delicious. Perhaps he does indeed have a Stand that uses human souls for cooking." Yeah yeah, Stardust Crusaders reference, even I got that one.

"I wanna be on Light's team!" Misa chirped, holding out her hand for me. I grabbed her, squeezed her just enough to be romantic.

"There aren't any teams, Misa," Matsuda said. "We all play for ourselves."

"Oh. Then I don't know how to play poker," she added. Ryuzaki was bridge-shuffling the cards now that he got the chips out. White is one point, red is five, the yet-unused blues are twenty.

"It's quite simple," Ryuzaki said, not looking up. "Each of us is dealt two cards only we may see. Those are your 'hole' cards, from which the term 'ace in the hole' comes from. Then three cards are flipped face up in the center of the table, for community use. Then a fourth, then a fifth. After each deal, there is an opportunity to place bets according to how confident you are in the strength of your hand, and when the turn comes to you you must either match the highest bid another player has made, increase the bet, or recuse yourself from the hand, losing all you have bet so far but not having to match the latest bid. At the end, you attempt to use the community cards and your two hole cards to form the best hand possible, according to this convenient hand rank chart." He flicked the little insert cards that came with the deck at Misa and Matsuda. High card all the way up to straight flush. 

"Ooh, neat!" Misa said. "So you bluff and make people think you have a good hand when you don't. And it's like we're in some glitzy casino in Monte Carlo where the James Bonds hang out." Do I correct her on that? I mean, there WAS more than one of them.

"Yeah, I played a few times when I was rookie," Matsuda said, "and I got how the D'Arby scene worked. But, and I don't wanna get down on our intelligence, aren't Light and Ryuzaki going to completely destroy Misa and I?"

"I don't want to be a braggart but we would," Ryuzaki said. The cards made a ssssshhhhhcccccttttt as he riffled them together. What is it, 21 perfect shuffles before you have a deck back in its original configuration? "That's why Light is going to devise a handicap for the two of us to make it fair."

Hmm. "Well, we should play a couple of practice hands with your cards all face up and us helping, just so Misa and you get the hang of things." That wasn't a manipulation, it really did seem fair. I looked around the room. How would we give Misa and Matsuda enough of a chance that when they lost, they felt like they could have won? Of course. Ryuzaki's dumb visor he saw in the movies. "I know. Ryuzaki, do you have like a sweatband or something for me to wear? You and me can't see our second hole cards -- we wear them on our heads where everyone else can."

"And we must determine the strength of our card by how others react to it," he smiled. "An interesting idea." I knew he'd love it. The guy loved battles of wits. 

Ryuzaki dealt two cards to each of us, and Misa and Matsuda flipped theirs face up. Ryuk wasn't saying anything, but he was leaning in very closely. I could in theory use him to spy on the other players' cards, but that would require me to bribe him again to play along, and also to communicate the idea to him without anyone else knowing, and also Ryuzaki would figure out I had a means of seeing the cards very quickly. This game was going to be an honest one. 

"Okay, so, instead of ante, I know the big blind goes around the table clockwise with every hand. And we'll represent it with, uhhhh..." Matsuda looked around for something Ryuzaki wasn't going to eat, then pulled out his car keys, with two colorful keychains attached, and dropped them on the table. "These. And whoever has it has to bid two chips at the start even if they don't want to, and the player to their right, they bid one, correct?"

"Correct. Each hand will require two chips to play into. But two of us may bow out freely if we are not confident." Ryuzaki dealt the cards out. Misa and Matsuda flipped theirs over. 

"I wanna bid five!" Misa immediately said. 

"Er, no, Misa," I cautioned. "It's not your turn, first. Second, the first round of betting should be very cautious, because the players don't have much information. And third, a two and a seven of different suits is the worst hand you can possibly have."

"...Oh." She sheepishly looked around. "I don't wanna bid five. I abdicate."

"Smart play," Ryuzaki said. "A good hole is either a pair of cards of the same value, or one or two face cards or aces." Pause. "Face cards are J, Q, and K, Misa. Matsuda has a Queen of Spades and a Jack of Spades, meaning he can possibly make a straight or a flush, as well as a pair, and if nobody can make a hand he has a moderate chance of having the highest card. He will want to bid two to enter this round, and perhaps 3 or 4 to see if the rest of us are confident."

Ryuzaki and I walked them through the basics of play and strategy. Matsuda mostly knew, Misa was eager to learn. 

Misa was so eager. 

She'd be quite eager to trade her life for the Shinigami Eyes the moment she remembered they were an option. But I'd come to realize Misa had another quality that would be useful to me. Misa Amane was incredibly charismatic, even moreso than myself. Matsuda had risked his life in the test to free her because he thought she was cute and spunky. Two Shinigami, who have no sexual reproduction and no biological need for pair-bonding or self-sacrifice whatsoever, had fallen so deeply in love with her they would die to extend her life. She accumulated obsessive fans and stalkers the way a diplomatic vehicle accumulates parking tickets. People felt so sorry for her. People loved her and would do anything for her. And she loved me and would do anything for me.

"All right, I think I got it!" Misa chirped after the third hand. I'm ready to play for real!" Then she narrowed her eyes. "But if Light wins he's my boyfriend so that counts as half a win for me. I get like a slice of cake. I bet you're so good you could beat us without ever looking at your cards!"

"Yeah, that's how it went in 'Stardust Crusaders'," Matsuda said. "Jotaro bluffs by never looking at his hand, so D'Arby can't possibly read him."

"Damn it!" she cursed. "I thought I came up with a cool idea!" 

Two cards to each of them. One card to me and Ryuzaki, and one more we slipped into our headbands without looking. Ryuzaki had a four of clubs. Misa looked happy, so I probably had something good. She wouldn't be happy based on suit, so I didn't know if I had a flush available with my eight of diamonds.

"I'm in." I tossed two chips into the pot. So did everyone else. 

The flop. Or the river. There's dumb names for each deal and I can't recall which is which. Q-H, 3-D, J-H. I might have a queen on my head... Matsuda looks like he's evaluating what we have. Ryuzaki obviously has nothing, so I can't have a queen, or Matsuda wouldn't need to think about it. King or ace of diamonds leaves me open for a flush, but...

The bid passed to me. "Eh, I'm not feeling it this time. I fold."

"Aww, Light!" Misa whined. "You had a king! That's a good one!" 

"It's fine, I only lost two chips," I told her. "And sometimes it's better to be cautious, you know. It's okay to lose a little if it stops you from losing a lot." Then while the three of them played the hand out, I got to my real work. "So. Did Naomi not want to play, or is she busy? She usually spends her time with you."

"I think she's still pretty upset," Misa said. "Also, let's, uh, let's make the bid... one more. That's cautious, right?" She clearly wanted more, but was trying to impress me. "Naomi's been kinda out of it lately. It's something about Raye. I think she's been going out for rides on her bike to clear her head. I'm going back to work soon, so I hope she's okay with that."

She was acting unusual because she was working herself up to commit a murder. The hatred and resentment were boiling over inside her and nothing would stop them. Maybe she was even trying to scout where Kitamura's routine took him. The bid passed around again, everyone in for three. The turn-flip-flop-creek. 9-H. Misa bid 1 more again. Matsuda folded and flipped over his hand in disgust. Ryuzaki took Misa's bait. Fifth card: 3-C. Ryuzaki and Misa were in for five each, and compared hands.

"Read 'em and weep, boys!" Misa proclaimed. "Nine, ten, jack, queen! That's a four card straight!"

"Misa." Ryuzaki said. "It's only a straight if all five cards are in sequence. You have a pair of threes." He pulled the card off his forehead to scrutinize it. "As do I. But your next highest card is a queen. Mine is a king." He flipped it over with the slightest of smiles.

"Oh. Then I don't wanna bet five," she said, but it was already too late. Her chips were Ryuzaki's now.

"Man," Matsuda grumbled, "I figured Misa had something good." He flipped his three and six.

"Well... Ha, see, that's because I am a good actress, and I am good at bluffing!"

Me and Ryuzaki shared a little glance. We both smile. It's clear what the real game is now. We're not playing to win ourselves. We're playing Misa vs Matsuda. 

"Well, you know, I was just going to say," I endearingly stuttered as Ryuzaki shuffled, "I think you're really important to Naomi, Misa. She's in a difficult time and you've been a really good friend, even though you had every right not to be." Misa had mostly just been present in the room and not done anything of import, other than shout at us. But someone as lonely as Naomi wouldn't need more than that. Their mutual damage and loneliness drew them together like two asteroids caught in each other's gravity, destined for collision.

"Aww, thanks, Light!" she said. Ryuzaki's eyes flicked to my card once. Very fast. Fast enough that he was quickly dismissing what I had -- his eight of spades wasn't amazing, and whatever he had hidden he didn't know about my king of hearts in the hole. Misa peeled up her cards to take a look. "I mean, it's only fair, isn't it? She was nice to me when she didn't have to be. She's a super cool person." Her eyes went wide for a split second, and she slapped her cards onto the table like they would burn her if she looked too long. "Ah, and, I mean, you know, all of us are on the same investigating team. We should all get along and work together! We should have, you know, professionally amicable relationships." 

Matsuda didn't notice her obvious tell, he was scrutinizing his cards. "We're all on the same team?" Whatever she had was obvious, he had something he had to evaluate. "I thought you were on Team Misa and Ryuzaki was Team L, wasn't it?"

"Ugh, Team Misa is clearly a SUBTEAM of the Kira Special Investigative Team," she shot back. "Duh. That's how come Light can be on both of them. Oh, uh, I am... just in for two." Overly cautious. She definitely had something good. I wanted to feed her as much as I could without scaring her off, and Ryuzaki wanted to intimidate Matsuda out of the hand before he lost too much. This would be easy. 

J-D. 8-C. 4-D. Misa was easy to manipulate, and through her, anyone in prolonged contact with her but Ryuzaki and probably Watari were easy to manipulate. You're so eager to get my approval, Misa. And everyone else is so eager to make you happy. If L has a problem with you, then, someone who loves you has a problem with L. If that someone is covering up a murder she committed, and fears L might come down on the both of you, well, at the very worst the investigation would be shattered. At best, L would turn his back to her and she'd shoot him rather than let him persecute the two of them. I doubt I'd be fortunate enough for Naomi to be as idiotically self-negating as Rem and change her entire value system to support Kira, so she'd have to be dealt with eventually, but she'd proven that if she went missing not many people would look for her and not very hard. Misa would get over it if Kira commanded her to.

"Hmph. Matsuda, I think you have a tell. I think you have nothing. I raise 2," Ryuzaki said.

"I call your two... and I raise one more!" Misa came back. 

"You're trying to mess with me, Ryuzaki," Matsuda grumbled. "Fine. I'm in for three more. I'm not the wilting flower you think I am." Bad for Ryuzaki, that his puppet was getting rebellious.

"I'll see that action," I said. I didn't care what I had, I'd fold to feed Misa when I'd poured in enough.

"Nice try, Matsuda," Ryuzaki grumbled. He was being very obvious about his goals, but sometimes you have to be to get through to an idiot who can't get subtext. "Judging by how you looked back to my exposed card, I'd say I already have a pair. You looked at your own cards again, so you don't know what you have yet. I'm ready to take you for everything you have. See the 1, raise 2 more."

"I check your two, and I... I raise... Nah, I don't raise," Misa decided. Could be doubt creeping in, could be Misa not wanting to interfere with Ryuzaki's and Matsuda's conflict. 

"...Ugh. Fine." Matsuda laid down his cards in disgust. "I'm out."

I was still in. Next card. A-S. Ryuzaki let the bid stand. Misa was in for one more, of course. Her pattern was becoming very clear. 

"Hmmm... You seem pretty confident," I told her. "But I still have a few tricks up my sleeve, Misa. See 1, and raise 1." Not too much. She was in awe of me, couldn't scare her off. Like gently holding out bread for a timid deer.

"Light, are you trying to rob your girlfriend now? You aren't a bluffer. Misa, you may want to check if you understand the rules. He could know something you don't." Ryuzaki tossed his two chips in without any fanfare.

"Hmm... He is pretty good," she mused like it meant anything. "Iiii don't know. If he had a really good hand, wouldn't he want to bid a whole bunch to get more money out of me? I'll meet your 1," and she tossed the chip in. "Also remember if you win anyway it still counts as half a win for me so I get a slice."

Last card. 4-H. A pair on the table, Matsuda immediately stomped his foot and swore. Ryuzaki checked.

"All right, I'm feeling really good about this hand!" Misa proclaimed. "Put me down for... two more!" 

There was a low pair on the table. Ryuzaki thought my card wasn't worth looking at, and Misa would be happy to see me winning anyway. Couldn't risk having a four and beating her pair of kings or queens she felt confident in. "That's too rich for my blood. You knocked me out, Misa."

"Hmph. Check. Call," Ryuzaki grumbled. I pulled down my card -- two of clubs.

"All right, NOW read them, and NOW weep!" Misa chirped. "A-one, a-two, and a-three fours! I did good, right Light?"

"Damn it, Ryuzaki, you got inside my head!" Matsuda groaned. "I had an ace and the last four! I would have had a full house if I didn't listen to you!"

"Well, I clearly have nothing," I said. "Excellent play, Misa." It was awful. Good thing she was so lucky and Matsuda so gullible -- a nine and a four wasn't nearly the hand she seemed to think it was. 

"Hmph. Looks like you take the pot, Misa," Ryuzaki conceded when he pulled down his card. "All I had was two pair."

J-D, A-S, A-C, 8-S, 8-C. How appropriate.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

The biggest point of failure in any security system is the human one. Wedy calls it alarm fatigue. To neutralize an alarm system, it is often best not to disable it, but to trigger it so often its users ignore its warnings. The Edogawa building in Yokohama is a tough nut to crack -- pressure sensors alert the personnel to any sudden change in air pressure on any level, such as from someone sneaking in, or a window breaking. No way in without security being alerted.

The underpass near the Yokohama headquarters is a place that middle-school delinquents have begin to hang out, bontan flapping in the breeze. Wedy shows them an extended-range potato cannon she calls the "Blessed Engine". She brags it can put a hole in the Moon. She instructs them how to load and pressurize it. She informs them that the higher up on the Yotsuba building the window is, the more points it's worth. They never see her again, but she appreciates their work.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

Misa Amane was still under a healthy weight, but getting better, and she was ready to return to the world of show business, alongside her manager Taro Matsui and her bodyguard Shoko Maki. 'Lolita ga Gotoku' was a tale of revenge, love, betrayal and loss in an underworld of frilly stockings. Filming just began but they always shoot these things out of order and so they were filming some ending scenes, on location at this fountain that was an Edogawa landmark. Near the plaza where Yotsuba had one of its headquarters. That wasn't the only reason we chose the script, but it played a part. Before shooting began, we had to stop by with the director and producer to introduce ourselves. 

"Hello," said Matsuda. He took a deep bow and came up with a winning smile and his business card. "My name is Taro Matsui. I'm Misamisa's new manager." Misamisa was a brand more than a person, he was the only one using the name regularly. Another bow, smaller. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." I wasn't quite certain why both of us were here, but I guessed I could see why. I couldn't really play the manager, what with the way they'd have to fast-talk sometimes, but Matsuda played the role well enough. Likable, smarter than he seemed. When both of us were out here, I could keep an eye on Misa and he could keep an eye on whoever she dealt with.

Misa gestured toward me like she was Vanna White. "And this is my personal bodyguard, miss Shoko Maki." I bowed, and gave them a little wave.

The director arched an eyebrow and looked at the crutch I was leaning on. "Your... bodyguard?"

"Uh-huh!" she beamed, as if she were proud of it. "Miss Maki saved my life, and that's why I want to keep her around all the time." I nodded in agreement.

"Doesn't talk much, does she?"

I had a card in my pocket to explain it, but Misa started talking before I could get it. "Miss Maki actually has a condition called 'expressive aphasia' where it is very, very difficult to speak, and she can only use 2 or 3 words at most. She has some colored notecards to use to help us know what she's saying. She can also write notes or type them into her phone, and please do not interrupt her, because that is very rude," she said, all very chipper yet matter of fact. Some crew were staring. 

The assistant director was scowling in disbelief. I could tell what he was thinking. 'Your bodyguard is a brain-damaged cripple?' I wished he would say something. I prayed he would start shit. I needed an outlet for my aggression. I'd handspring kick him in the face and then my knee would hurt but it would be worth it. I'd show him I could defend myself. I'd show myself.

I wouldn't use the gun, though. The gun nestled snugly under my armpit. That I took apart and oiled regularly, but couldn't practice with. The one that was with me so often I could forget it because it was a fundamentally true part of the world. The one that could not be stopped. That was a responsibility, not to be used on people who were just mean to me.

Ugh. I was out of it. I followed Misa back to her trailer and accompanied her to wardrobe, and then nobody was talking to me, and all I had to think about was how mad I was. I tried to focus on the movie, the production. Misa was in an angel outfit. The male lead looked nonthreatening. Would Raye have liked it? I'll never know. 

People were steering clear of me. I was trying not to let my anger show on my face, but that just made me a silent intimidating scarred type. I guess I was doing my fake job. 

Power was there. Close. I didn't know if I could take it back. I didn't know if I should. Any time I was alone my seething thoughts went back to Kitamura Koreyoshi. What would Raye want? Were vengeance and justice on opposite sides here? Did justice even exist when the justice system was declaring alliances with serial killers?

He took you away, Raye. He took you and I'll never have you back. All of them did it. You and me can't sit here together on a bench and watch this production fall apart. Because they just decided they got to be the ones to take you away. 

Misa was being lifted on wires in her angel getup -- for the last shot, her dead soul was finally getting the romance she deserved. God, I wished. I wished Raye could come back as an angel. Just for a while. Just for a scene. Just a medium shot. We would kiss, and hug, and I would hold his hair, and my last words to him wouldn't be "oh God shut the curtains before you go". I'd know it was coming. I'd be ready. He could help me. He always did.

It's not right that it happened. It's not right that he gets to be happy again and you don't. You don't deserve to be someone people get away with killing.

Misa got to the roof, lifted by the crane. "Okay, everyone, before we start!" she addressed the crew with as much presence as she could. "Just because I am kissing Kobi here, does not mean I'm not still in love with my boyfriend! Okay? I'm... I'm a professional! You can still love someone even if you smooch someone else!" God, it was a kiss on the cheek, Misa. Like in a Rockwell painting. Nobody thought you loved me. Nobody else was ever at risk of falling in love with me again, so you can stop worrying. 

Raye wouldn't mind it. I hoped Raye wouldn't mind it. But I'd never know. He was taken. For nothing. And the taker was still here.

Misa got back into the rhythm of being a pop idol starlet very quickly, and soon she was embroiled in love and betrayal amongst the baroque mafia as if she hadn't been tied up in a room with no windows for weeks on end. The special effects guy had not recovered so well, from what I had to assume was a stay in some kind of POW camp. Misa almost got thrown off the crane on the second take of the kissing scene. After cutting the third, sparks went flying from the fountain. The gunfight scene was next; in Misa's close in shots, she kept getting sprayed by plumes of water from the fountain. Doves got loose. The last straw was when the squib vest went off. The prop was supposed to recreate the explosion and blood spray of bullet impact by means of stage blood-filled condoms attached to tiny explosives taped to a bulletproof vest, but it wasn't supposed to look like Misa's stunt double was shot five times in the chest by an eclair at the craft services table. Everyone took twenty.

I sat on the bench, taking it all in. I tried to laugh at what I saw. Honestly, I succeeded a lot. Misa always tried to roll with whatever happened, and it usually ended up making the crew laugh more. Now that her big smooching speech was done, she was fine with trying to give her dying kiss to the dove that alit on her chest. It flew off.

But my thoughts kept going back to Raye. I felt the worst I'd been since the neurology clinic. And I thought about Kitamura. And everything he'd done. Again and again. A whirlpool my thoughts would always return to.

Matsuda took a seat next to me. He sighed like I felt. "Big day, huh?" he said. I grunted the affirmative. He stared up at the Yotsuba building for a while. "You ever feel... like, I dunno. Useless?"

"Ummm... Forever."

"Ry--the boss told me to get him coffee today. Can you believe that? Like that's all I'm good for." I just nodded. He looked sheepish. "I... I guess I probably shouldn't be complaining to you."

Rather than try a word, I just held my hand in the 'it's fine' gesture. 

"I just feel like... I wish I was doing more, you know? I wish I was contributing. That... so much crazy stuff is happening, maybe I could stop a little of it."

I leaned my head over on his. I knew exactly how he felt. There, we watched the production scurry apart. Misa came and sat next to us. 

"Didn't have a very good shoot today, huh?" she said. "You guys feeling crummy?" We were. "I'd have fixed it if I could. I'm sorry. I kept dropping my props, too. I feel real clumsy." 

The three of us watched the Tokyo skyline. Three weak, useless people who could accomplish nothing. Misa muttered "I wish Light was here," and that was it for speech. 

Until our phones rang in unison.

"Yeah, I need Team Misa on here," said the voice of Wedy. "We got a serious problem."

### 
    
    
    * R U L E S *

**10a**. Suicide is a valid cause of death. Basically, all humans are thought to possess the possibility to commit suicide. It is, therefore, not something unbelievable to think of.

 **CLARIFICATION** : The circumstances of death related to suicide must still be related to the human's suicidality; circumstances that are unbelievable for other reasons do not become plausible when related to suicide.

 **X-3a**. The human whose name is written in the Death Note cannot resist any compulsion his entry places upon him to end his own life, regardless of what a human would consider to be strong willpower. 

**X-3b**. Humans whose actions are required for the deaths of others, such as a human who must leave a bolt loose to ensure another dies of accident, have a much stricter standard of plausibility. In the example, a human who has a reputation for fastidiousness would not suddenly cause a fatal mistake.


	4. Forewarned is Foreboding

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

One goes to heist with the crew one has, not the crew who are much better but are too far from Yokohama to make it in time. Wedy is a professional. She will adapt.

Yotsuba's Yokohama office has just activated the GS343 Electronic Warfare Suite, a device that was never allocated from the budget and never indicated to be installed. It transforms the entire building into a transmitter and blasts its interior with radio frequencies, activating any monitoring systems that would otherwise wait passively and undetectably. Nobody uses the GS343 any more because it requires all the building's own cameras and electronic monitoring systems to be shut off for an hour to avoid interference. That's good. This means that Wedy's spy cameras and bugs will not be able to masquerade as the building's own security, they will be detected, they will be triangulated, and if Kira is here he will go to ground. That's very bad.

The first task actually goes to Nori, Misa's stunt double. Nori has to explain Misa's absence. Nori locks herself in Misa's trailer and has a half-audible, sobbing conversation about her fears that her boyfriend doesn't want her kissing the male lead. The other half of this conversation, of course, would communicate in writing. Good job, Nori.

Matsuda is the face man. He is effectively deaf the moment he walks up to the Yotsuba office: his phone may be untappable and untraceable but he doesn't have a secret earpiece to be fed info from. His jobs are simple and allow some wiggle room. First, he opens the door, and he holds it open. "Shoko! You coming?" he shouts out into the darkness. "Is that... Is that a no? ... Okay, fine, get me a coffee while you're out!" The pneumatic pressure alarm is not shut off by the GS343's interference. It records events internally, to be reviewed tomorrow, by someone whose work Kira might be checking. Matsuda needs to hold a ground level door open long enough for someone to crack a window and slip inside. 

Misa has a face that is instantly recognizable. There is no time to convince someone from makeup to disguise her. She cannot go inside, as this encounter must appear to Yotsuba to not be worth talking about, and autograph requests contradict that aim. Misa is in Wedy's rented office two streets over. Before her is an open window and an array of laser microphones and narrow band transmitters. She wishes she was down there sneaking around and breaking in. She thinks being the spotter is cool too. "Hey, Light! Guess what we're doing!" She's far more enthusiastic than even an hour ago.

Light is on the line. "Misa! I'm here. Ryuzaki and I are in the control room. We're all caught up on what's happening. You're gonna do great, I'm sure of it."

She takes a deep breath. Light believes in her. And if it's on behalf of Light she can do anything. "All right. Let's do this." She squints into the little scope, and sweeps the microphone along the bottom row of windows. "Okay. The third window, and the fourth, and eight, and eleven... all have people talking in them. Matsuda looks like he's going in."

Naomi is going inside, simply by virtue of her hardware. Thanks to L's overengineering every piece of equipment his crew has, she's the only one with an untappable comm link conveniently located in her ear. The system will be able to detect that it exists, of course, if they had truly untraceable signals the cameras would use those, but they won't know what data is being transmitted and will think it innocuous. Covering that is one of Matsuda's jobs. So Naomi is outside, on the lawn, right in the view of a camera that's turned off. She's nabbed a secretary-style blazer and a modestly sized scarf from wardrobe, to cover her incredibly recognizable scars, and hastily smeared foundation above and below her lip as she was jogging to her destination. Her outfit doesn't quite fit, and neither time nor her necessary range of motion permitted her to change her blue jeans for a pencil skirt. She waits for Misa's word that the sixth window is clear, and she pushes it open. She's in and unmonitored. 

The office is dark and empty, but inspection reveals a name tag. It can't survive close inspection since it's a man's name tag but it will work for a second. The most foolproof secret to sneaking in anywhere: wear a white coat and look very, very fed up. Second place: Flash your name tag faster than someone can read it and hustle like you really have to pee. She nabs some printer paper on her way out of the first floor -- looks like she's carrying something, but no paperwork will be missed. They deal with extremely sensitive financial information here. She has no idea what might make a problem if she steals it. 

Yotsuba's lobby greets Matsuda with a large round desk for the secretary, and security off to the side. "Ah. Hello there!" He bows obsequiously. "I'm so, so sorry to trouble you. I'm with the movie project, across the plaza. Can I maybe, perhaps take a teensy bit of your time?" He walks up to the desk in Maximum Wheedling Mode. "We've been... having some equipment trouble on set. The tech guys tell me that there's some electrical interference coming from this building." He hands out a hearing aid -- the spare, of course -- into the secretary's palm. "One of Misa's people uses this and, well, just hear for yourself." Matsuda puts his hand into his pocket as the secretary puts the device to her ear. He waits four seconds, then double-taps the star button on his phone. 

Misa takes her phone and puts it up to the speaker. Ryuzaki, Light, and Aiber wince as the channel is blasted with squealing feedback. The secretary recoils. "See what I mean?" says Matsuda, and then both of them look at the paper placard on her desk:

//For tonight's security upgrade, please disable all phones and radios before 8 PM!//

He's taken to the security desk. Maybe they can help him with his problem. 

Naomi isn't accosted on her way from the office. Not many people are here, and most security is electronic and turned off. No matter how expensive the system, not enough people are running it, with not enough care for their work. If she is still here when the cameras reactivate, she is absolutely hopelessly done for. Her goal is on the 15th floor. Misa can mark for her when two stairwells are occupied or unoccupied. 

"Okay, stop! The guy is coming into the left stairwell. My left, not yours. He's... he's going down. He's going down all the way, maybe, I don't THINK he's a guard?... Okay you are on the sixth floor, right? He's... Okay, the right side is clear! Go to the other stairway! And, and don't go to the eighth floor if you can help it! Is that eight? Yeah, the eighth! Go all the way to nine if you can!"

Without her crutch, Naomi's knee is starting to hurt. It's not the greatest of her worries. The stairwell is clear for her to proceed. Misa has her eyes and her augmented ears on 15 now, sweeping the laser back and forth across it. Luckily, the enclosed offices all have windows, and Naomi can see into the maze of cubicles toward the interior. "Nothing... nothing... typing... Okay, that's one guy, you have to be quiet. Nothing... Is that..." Misa holds her breath and listens. "Someone's breathing. I think he's asleep. Okay, two offices have people in them. Or, I mean, two windows worth of offices. Third and seventh, counting, counting from where you are. Or, wait, there's someone... Is there a window that the hallway looks into? Tap the glass if you can see out of it." Tap. Tap. "Okay, good, that's you, so I can hear the hallway too. So I just... Light, I just flip back and forth between these three to see if I hear anything, right?"

"Sorry... Matsui, right?" the guard says. "We can't shut this thing off yet. We can try to fix it for next week, but, honestly, that's going to be hard too." Shrug. Whaddya gonna do? "Security around here is just, it's crazy, right? They're always adding new nonsense. They say it's because they deal with so much financial information, but... It's some kind of scam, since Yotsuba owns the security contractors. Someone's robbing the company, but not in the way they pay us to care about."

"That's a good plan, Misa. Keep going. Doing great." Naomi looks into the interior of the floor. Past the stairwell, three cubicles are lit with the sickly glow of monitors. One of them is right up next to the hallway. Working late nights. The cubicle walls are low, and the cubicles numerous. From the waist up, with no reason to look closely at her, she looks exactly like a secretary should look. She digs an empty disposable coffee cup from the burnable trash bin and holds it close to her face. She doesn't stride with confidence past the occupied cubicle. She strides with weariness, resigned exhaustion. The guy in the cubicle looks right up to her. He nods to her in acknowledgment. She nods back. Boy, have I ever been there! And then he's back to his work. Too many cubicles around here. Too many people for one guy to track. 

Naomi has a clear shot to her goal, dead center of the hallway, on the floor dead center in the building: the 15th story employee break room. There's no door, but there's a freestanding counter to cut cakes on, a TV, beanbag chairs, et cetera. Nice place, all told. "It's stuck to the top inside of the third cabinet, where they hide the liquor. Just pop the lock open and peel it out," says Wedy. There is silence. Naomi doesn't have a mic, and she wouldn't be able to use it. "You... don't carry lockpicks with you at all times. Right. Shit. They might notice if you bust the lock now and they certainly will tomorrow. We can't count on them blaming an employee." 

"Crap! Crap!" Misa exclaims. "Typing guy is getting up! He's... Yeah, he's leaving! I have no idea what direction he's going in, you may have to hide!"

"Oh, if you wanna talk about bad management, whoo, I have some stories for you," says Matsuda. He'd love to hang out and talk with these guys in the security office. The more people looking at him while he's talking, the less are looking at the isolated pings on the GS343's ugly, boxy threat monitor display, and there's less odds of them noticing a precursor. He keeps glancing at the clock. A few devices may create feedback here and there, and it might even rise to the level of suspicious if they look closely. But at exactly 8:37 and 11 seconds, assuming the sweep started on schedule, it's going to test a frequency and that monitor is going to light up like a Christmas tree. They have about twelve minutes before things become very, very bad.

Naomi does have to hide. If this office worker grabs a snack on his way out... Quick decision time. Hide from sight entirely, but get totally made if he happens to stumble upon you? Or try to look plausible, but give him more of a chance to investigate? No. He has an office with a window, he knows who the secretaries are. Every break room Naomi has ever seen has a spacious floor-level cabinet that contains only one container of styrofoam disposable bowls. Here is no exception. 

The late-working manager stops by the break room. To nab a snack for the road. He's never bought anything that goes into the fridge, but he is a boss, he has authority over his employees, right? Hmm, what do we have in the fridge this evening?

Don't steal something that needs a bowl, don't steal something that needs a bowl, don't steal something that needs a bowl...

"My last job was just awful. You ever met Hideki Ryuga?" Matsuda asks. Nobody did, which means he is free to shit-talk. "He has, he has a whole team of staff, right? I asked him what I could do for him. He looked right, he looked right at the secretary polishing her nails. And he said 'Matsui, get us some coffee'. Like, like, I went to the academy, I have an MBA!" Embellishing is easier than lying. Lying is easier when it's something that you feel is true and you just swap the details. 

He doesn't steal something that needs a bowl. He steals a sandwich and some soda. Doesn't even stop to use the microwave. Naomi waits thirty seconds before she squeezes herself out of the cabinet, her knee now getting very angry with her. But now she has some time to work. Ryuzaki and Light just listen to the events, unused to having less information than everyone else involved. 

Naomi knows a little something about lockpicking, and the woman talking in her ear knows a lot more. Lockpicking is trivial with the right tools, and pretty easy with the wrong ones, but impossible without any. You need something broad and rigid to turn the lock, and something skinny with a bump on the end to tap the pins. When you tap the pin into the place the key would set it, the pressure of you turning the cylinder locks it into place. 

First component is easy. There's a silverware drawer in the break room, and a butter knife. Done. Second is slightly more difficult. Nobody's left a paper clip; Naomi doesn't use hair pins. But inspection reveals plastic toothpicks next to the birthday candles. They will have to do.

"Gentle. Think of how big the gap between the lowest point and the highest point of a key is. There's not much of a difference. Don't move the pick more than that," Wedy coaches. "Twist the butter knife like it's a doorknob. Geeently. Like you're going into a room with someone who's asleep. And juuust... feather the tumblers. Don't push them hard at all." The metal creaks. She twists the toothpick too much, and it snaps off in the lock. Wedy has no idea what is happening and keeps coaching. Naomi has leather motorcycle gloves; she either can't pinch the tiny bit of toothpick sticking out, or she leaves fingerprints. No time.

"It's like, it's like bosses nowadays, they expect you to be loyal to the company when they aren't paying that loyalty back," the security manager says, to nods of agreement from his two other guys. "We jump through so many hoops, we deal with so many absurd false alarms, they don't let us do our jobs by making our own protocol... The only real problem we have with security is that guy who steals something out of the fridge every time he sees it, and they won't let us do anything about him." He nods authoritatively, then picks up when he feels his coworker about to add something. "Well, that and potatoes. Honestly, who is out there giving potato cannons to middle schoolers? No wonder people are all talking about Kira. This country is going down the toilet."

Naomi drops to her knee and kisses the lock. Her mouth's suction is enough to pull the delicate pick from the hole; she wipes off the spit with her sleeve. The second toothpick goes much better. The lock yields, and sure enough, a false roof on the cabinet reveals a black disc about the size of a saucer. Unable to signal, she taps herself on the ear twice so they'll hear her fingertip. 

"Right. That's the WHAT ARE YOU DOING WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO DRIVE JACKASS?" Wedy snaps. "That's the central hub. The cameras all transmit to it, and then it transmits back to us. The signal is very, very weak so it won't be detected. It has a fail-safe mode that slags the antenna on every camera, rendering them unable to transmit even when tricked by active transmissions. But the building must be too thick to get the signal in, or something is creating some kind of interference. So I need you to take that thing and press it up against a window so Misa can hit it with the frying signal. A red light should come on. Misa, the transmitter for that looks like a raygun with a dish on it. Got it?"

"This is not right," Ryuzaki says. "Wedy, your pedigree is impeccable. How were you so taken by surprise?"

"Don't insult my competence, Ryuzaki," Wedy says with all her composure back. "The only way to truly ensure an absolutely undetectable surveillance, by any means, is to use no surveillance at all. You wanted interior cameras, trade offs had to be made. No records indicated that they had purchased this specific type of ECM system, so I optimized around that. Companies don't really buy the GS343 outside of Eastern Europe. The security holes it introduces, like Naomi able to run around in front of cameras with impunity while it's on, are absolutely absurd. You're doing great, by the way, Naomi. Keep going. It just so happens this thing has the one weakness that lets my bugs be found."

"It's not possible." Ryuzaki mutters. "How would they pick the single system that defeats Wedy's surveillance? She wasn't observed coming into the country, we've made no move against Yotsuba, they have no idea I suspect them..." He looked over at Light. "Even if Light has a means to clandestinely message outside parties... you know nobody in Yokohama. None of your contacts suddenly went down there. You've not been able to gain more information than me. You never had access to her schematic. You wouldn't understand it if you did. This is a new Kira... whose identity you cannot yet know... so it's not possible that you have warned him."

"Well, you're probably busy with stuff for the movie," the guard says, "I couldn't help you, so I probably ought to stop talking your ear off. Nice meeting you though, Taro. You guys need any set security, you let us know, okay?"

"Oh, it's no trouble!" Matsuda says. "I'm enjoying myself. I'll stay here and talk as long as you'll have me." He laughs nervously, hoping it comes off as self-effacing. He can't leave yet. The operation isn't done, one way or the other. He's got no idea what will be needed from him next. 

"Well, cheer up Ryuzaki," says Light, eyes glued to the meager info feed on the main monitor. "I don't think these guys are after Wedy. Think about it: why would you run a security sweep at 8 PM, when people are still working? Why not 3 AM and have nothing go wrong?"

Ryuzaki slowly turns to face Light, eyes lighting up -- as much as he gets, anyway. "Because I don't want the company to see what I'm doing at 8 PM."

Light nods. "We thought we were looking for a corporate mucketymuck doing suspicious things in his office to give us a trail to follow him home where he's Kira. Maybe he's doing it at the office."

Ryuzaki's smiling. "The reason to do it at the office is if you cannot do it at home. And you can't do it at home... if you're Kira by committee."

"Uh, guys?" says Misa. "Naomi's shaking her head. I don't think I got it. The light's coming on on the raygun... Is something getting in the way?"

"Energy efficient windows," Wedy spits. "Of course. Couldn't check them from outside. God damn it. God damn it!"

Matsuda's phone vibrates in his pocket. Text from Misa. //OPEN A WINDOW FLOOR 13 14 16 OR 17//. He flips it shut, slaps himself and curses. The guards look at him expectantly. Six minutes.

"Okay, this is gonna sound pretty dumb," he says sheepishly. "Can I take a picture of the set? From high up? See, there's a problem... We need a high, far shot for the end of the battle scene. I need to see if I can get a good one from you guys's place."

The guards are skeptical. "Don't you have something worked out for that already?"

"We did! We did!" he says with a nervous chuckle. Five minutes forty. "But we got here and you can see the WcDonalds billboard on the left side. So, you know, if we edit it out in post, it'll look really awkward. And we're not going to shoot from the building, obviously! It's a crane shot, the crane would be out in front of your property. I just need to check the view from the same angle."

The standing guard scowls. "That's not the job of a star's manager. That's the job of a director of photography."

Matsuda sighs, and his shoulders slump. He is defeated. He can't make a better story than this. "Yeah... that is something the DP should be doing, isn't it?"

The guard claps a hand on his shoulder. "Taro, you've gotta stop letting your bosses pawn this stuff onto you!" He is a fellow traveler now. A brother in arms against Those Guys Up Top And Their Bullshit. "All right, come on, but be quick."

Elevator ride. Three minutes thirty. The guard accompanies Matsuda every step of the way, ensuring he does nothing untoward. The 14th story looks good! Matsuda cranks the flash on his phone's camera to maximum, takes a shot, and nearly blinds himself. "Sorry. I forgot the glare. Can I crack this thing open?"

"Eh, I don't know..." Two minutes forty-five. "The windows aren't supposed to be open without authorization." Two thirty. "Eh, I'll just log it. I'm pretty sure if you let a cat burglar in, I can just shove her back out. Come on, the windows over here open." Two fifteen. An open break area with tables and chair lined along the wall. The guard tries a window. "Hmm, did we seal these?" Two minutes. "Oh, no, this one works. Here we go!" Minute forty five. 

Matsuda nearly shoves his upper body out of the window and takes a picture. He has no idea what this is accomplishing but given the time scale, sending a signal is very important. The brilliant flash illuminates the night, unreflected, calling Misa's attention. She shouts "HE OPENED IT HE OPENED IT GO GO GO!" into her receiver.

The window open, the air pressure alarm is tripped, and the guard notes the date and time and location to authorize it. A floor above, Naomi wrenches open another window, causing an air pressure differential that the guards will write off as the echo of an oversensitive system. They've been trained to. Minute thirty. Naomi's grip would be white-knuckled if she could see her fingers as she holds the hub out the window for the clearest, most unobstructed line of sight possible to Misa's transmitter. Minute ten. She pulls the hub back and confirms the red light. The killswitch signal is transmitting. How far towards the center of this building does the hub have to be? Naomi has no way to ask this. Nobody can see her by the stairwell, but they will definitely notice her if she sprints back to the break room. 

She flings the hub down the hall like a hockey puck. It donks off one wall and skips to a stop by the water cooler; the closer man in the cubicle hears the sound, but he's doing too many important things to investigate or care. Over the next twenty seconds, the red light flashes, flashes slowly, then goes dead. She gently closes the window she opened so as not to make a sound and hobbles, favoring her good leg, to pick up the hub just as it dies. She sticks it in the pocket of her blazer and holds out her empty papers and empty coffee cup again. All of the antenna have been slagged, and will never transmit again. The cameras and bugs will be found eventually, but by then the investigation will have concluded or Kira will rule the world.

Forty seconds to spare. Naomi sits down in the break room and catches her breath. Misa whoops and hollers in triumph. Matsuda is escorted to ground level by a nice fellow who offers to take him drinking in a couple of days. The control room crew breathe sighs of relief.

"Congratulations!" says Wedy. "You managed to pull off what I could do in five minutes. I'm still seven minutes out; I'll get in and extract Misora once I arrive."

And then.

"Light... We still have time, right? Like, if the scan goes for an hour, the cameras won't turn on until 9, right?" asks Misa. "They're doing Kira stuff right now, aren't they? If we have a few minutes, then can Naomi look for... Wait, do you have like an infrared scope I can see where all the Kiras are with?"

"You have eleven minutes, because that's how long it will take me to extract the last agent. Infrared scope will just show you how hot the building is. You can't see inside that way."

Naomi does not like where this is going, but Light and Ryuzaki are on the same wavelength. "Misa, Misa that's a great idea. Okay. We think they're being Kira by committee. You can't SEE them, but... whoever it is has to be powerful enough to tell the entire building to shut off their phones and install a new security system. There's no point in having a committee if they aren't all of similar rank, and if they are trying to increase the wealth of the company, they must all be stockholders. 25 and 26 are executive suites, right? What's going on up there?"

"Okay... hang on..." Misa is concentrating on the top floors, so she can't hear Naomi stuffing ice from the break room freezer into a Ziploc bag to apply to her knee. "The audio graph isn't picking up anything very loud, I think... But then they'd not say anything next to a window, would they? Wedy, does Yotsuba have like a darker, eviler conference room with no windows?

Ryuzaki and Light share a look. 

"The top two floors are executive suites, yeah," Wedy warns. "The stairwells have keycard locks and only the executive elevator reaches it. She cannot get in there. I can get in after I spring her but I might end up having to sleep there overnight once the cameras come back."

"We might not have time!" Light says. "Naomi, just... Misa, can you walk her up to the 24th floor the way you did before?"

"Roger that!" says Misa with a salute nobody appreciates. "Okay, you are on 15... which is this one... And there's definitely less noises going on the higher up you get..."

The greatest difficulty she has making it up is from her knee, which is killing her by now. It's time for another surgery, because the last one did not take. But she's there. 24. One floor below the executive level. Light Yagami has been mumbling to himself the entire time, almost in an L-like fashion, and springs into action once Misa reports her arrival. "Okay! The air pressure system can be fooled by other levels, so we know the ventilation system is connected between floors. If they're cutting off internal monitoring, then maybe it's possible to hear them... and if you can, it can't be through a window, it must be through the air vents." He's bobbing back and forth to psych himself up. "It's not as good as Wedy's bugs, but... Can you find a vent, take out your hearing aid, and place it as far in as you can? Ryuzaki, is there a mixing board or something? I need to boost the gain to maximum."

Ryuzaki shows him the control panel, as if he were bowing out of the way for a master to work. Naomi puts her high-tech hearing assistance gingerly into the vent, hoping to pick up a few scattered echoes of conversation. Light winces and grits his teeth as the crew picks up whispers of "...inconvenient to our interests..." and "...doubted our methods, he should not have chosen...".

But he's not grimacing at the callousness hinted at by those words. It's just that nobody else in the room can hear Ryuk, screaming at the top of his lungs(?) into the overboosted microphone, "HEY REM! REM! HEEEEEEY REEEEEEM!"

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

"Everybody rumored! Nobody believed! Now you see it's true!" Misa shouted triumphantly the moment we made it into the command room.. "Team Misa has returned to save the day!" Hands wide in the air, up on one foot, she basked in imaginary praise and adulation from a phantom audience.

And a real one. "Misa!" Light called out to her. He went to go give her a hug, but he was still tied to Ryuzaki, who wasn't moving. "Good work. You've really got a head for this."

Misa bounded across the room to land in his lap, spinning on the office chair and winding the handcuff chain around them while she made out with her boyfriend. Misa was doing most of the work, I think. Ryuzaki looked put out, and just kind of stuck out his leg so they'd collide with it and stop spinning. 

I found myself a seat, and one for my extended leg with an ice pack tied to it. Aizawa and Soichiro and Watari were nowhere to be found. Aiber had a pina colada in his hand. I don't know where he got it; he seemed like the kind of person for whom pina coladas just sort of spontaneously appeared.

"I can't believe we did it!" Matsuda said to me. "It was all so fast, I... I don't think I processed it all." I could only grunt my assent. I was right there with him. I was more scared now than when I was doing it, because now I had time to be scared. "Did we... did we actually save the day?" It felt like it. Kinda.

"We did!" Misa said in triumph. She tried to stand and bound over to us and immediately stumbled over the handcuffs. "We -- whoop! I'm okay! -- We're big giant heroes and we're all gonna get medals. Ryuzaki, make us medals!"

"No."

"Well, then, I at least want a fake badge like everyone else got!" she shot back. "That's kind of like a medal. And I know you have a mold for it!"

Misa bounded up to meet us and gave Matsuda a great big hug, which he only returned after a couple seconds of sheepish confusion. I was honestly proud of Misa. She was wallowing in self-pity like the rest of us, yet the moment the call came, she jumped at it. On the battlefield of info warfare, she was a berserker. Some small part of me felt like 'hey, she's able to see herself as deserving and agentic because you believed in her and worked to get her out of harm, she's starting to walk away from her abhorrent beliefs because of you, part of this is to your credit,' but it was probably all from Light Yagami. I don't see much emotional support coming from him, but it's not like I spent all my time with him anyway. Misa's congratulatory hug for me didn't land in my lap, but she wrapped her arms around me, and she squeezed, and she buried her face in my neck, and it felt... It felt really nice. It feels good to be appreciated, have someone say you deserve affection. Usually "a pretty girl" isn't the specific polarity of validation I looked for, but I took what I could get.

I liked Misa. I couldn't believe I was saying that, given I met her as Kira's biggest fan. But I got Misa. I got how terrified she was, how unsafe. I could see myself in her. I could see where I might have gone. And after seeing that she was suffering and afraid, I'm seeing her... do something about it. Making the world make sense again instead of relying on others to do it for her. Hunting Kira because she recognizes that has to be done, rather than just hanging around and maybe helping because Light says. She was a work in progress. So were we all, I think. 

God, I missed Raye. He'd tell me what a great job I did. He'd be mortified I put myself in danger, and he'd vow to do it for me, but he'd tell me what I did was still amazing. 

"Congratulations. You managed to bring us back to slightly worse than where we started at," Ryuzaki said to us with a looming stare. "We were not detected. But we destroyed all surveillance in the building. We have only thirty seconds of distorted audio and no video of the meeting. Our only grounds for believing that the meeting group is Kira was the general menacing nature of their conversation. There is still the possibility Matsuda is reported to management as suspicious. Our interest is in ensuring this does not happen again."

"Perhaps next time the cops could fake a block-wide power outage and reset the cycle," Wedy said, her voice all calm and silky. "Your briefing led me to believe it was the case, but unfortunately it was outdated." And theeeere it was again.

"Outdated briefing?" Aiber said. "Wow, this case has really got you off your game, Ryuzaki." Ryuzaki was fuming. It was no secret how frustrated he was, and how much he was fixating on Light Yagami (despite telling me and all of us that Light is almost certainly not Kira), which meant he had to be in love with the guy or something. After my outburst, things were getting a bit more tense around here. I think everyone realized there wasn't much to do about it. What, can you coup and unseat the World's Greatest Detective because he's a prick?

Besides, I wasn't thinking about that right now. I was thinking about how the cops should have been able to save the operation, but they didn't, because Koreyoshi fucking KITAMURA signed his pact with the serial killer to withdraw all support. No wonder Ryuzaki was off his game. He was manifesting the power of an "institution" of like ten people, trying to cover the city of Tokyo. Because someone reneged on his duty to serve and protect. Because someone wanted other people to die so his guys weren't in danger. Because someone is a murderous coward.

Light and Ryuzaki were arguing about something now. I didn't care. Misa was looking at me, and I smiled. Yeah. I did admire her for coming back, and wanting to do something about the world. I clasped her hands close to mine, and I told her. "G-good." 

And she bumped her forehead to mine. "I know how much you mean by that," she said warmly. "But you did all the dangerous stuff. You're really cool."

And then, I snapped my fingers for Wedy's attention, waved her over. "Oh. Yeah. You? You'll have your thing by tomorrow," she said, though not admitting she felt a debt or anything.

I should stop feeling sorry for myself. Stop fuming at the injustices inflicted around me. I should do something about it.

### 
    
    
    * R E M *

The human I was haunting was a repulsive creature. Selfish. Avaricious. He used the Death Note for his personal monetary gain. His blue eyes had no light or compassion in them. His short styled hair can't make him look any less worthwhile. "Hello, Renesco Salvatore of Naples," he said as he inked another name. "Goodbye, Renesco Salvatore of Naples."

But I must follow him because he bears the Death Note in my custody. And I must accompany him because this is Light Yagami's plan. I despise Light Yagami. He is the most repulsive human creature of all. But I do not understand the human world, and he does. I do not understand how to save Misa Amane from danger, and he does. So I am his puppet. I gave this man the Death Note, as instructed. I told him what he must do with it, as instructed. I answer his questions about its powers, as instructed. His shinigami Ryuk shouted a message to me through the air-spraying system, and I dutifully reported it, as instructed. I have said nothing since. I stayed one meter behind him and watched with as much disdain as my body can manage to convey.

I have nothing to do most of the day. I have no interest in the wealth games he plays to sustain himself. He has nothing to offer my body or mind. He sat in his study after his day of accomplishing nothing worthwhile, killing humans for no reason other than that he cannot be stopped. It does not sustain his life to do so. Most of the humans he kills are grotesque monsters. The total level of monstrousness in the human world does not go down. Perhaps Light Yagami is right. The world needs to be cleansed of its corrupt and wicked. Like those vile people who would cleanse it of its corrupt and wicked.

"Hello, Yuri Sokolov of Saint Petersburg. Goodbye, Yuri Sokolov of Saint Petersburg." I cannot despise this world as much as I should. I do not have the strength. There is not enough room in my being to accommodate that depth of emotion. Goodness in a human is defined by their ability to partially balm the suffering created by other humans.

The door opened. His disgusting wife poked her head inside. Another human was growing inside her stomach. When it emerged it would suffer and create suffering. The only measure of existence for humankind. "Honey! I know you're still working, but dinner is ready soon. What do you want to drink?"

He flipped the Death Note closed over his finger to hold his place. "Sweetie! I told you you should stay off your feet! I can make my own drinks when I get down, you just sit!" he said. The warmth in his voice was a mask to enable him to commit more atrocities. I am learning this is true of all human voices.

"It's no trouble!" she said, cringing and fawning. "Don't you worry about me, worry about us!" she said as if those words hold any actual meaning, as if it made her a good person to defer to another. Then she turned her gaze to me. "Rem, sweetie, how about you, did you want anything with dinner?"

I have told her many times I do not, but she was a human. She didn't care what I said.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

No filming until the evening. We had a lead on the new perpetrators, but we had to wait on Wedy to lay down new bugs that didn't trip the security system. That meant nothing to do but hang out.

"So. Misa," said Matsuda, "I've been good at dodging questions so far, but we're going to have to come up with an explanation as to your prolonged absence. We can't exactly say the real answer, and the tabloids are starting to say you were in rehab."

"Ugh. That makes me sound like Paris Hilton." Misa shuddered. "Her spectre haunts all young female celebrities." She paused and her tone became defensive. "What? I read books! Anyway. What if I was out, like, helping starving children in Africa?"

"Yeah, but then why would we keep that a secret, and why wouldn't we film it?"

"Good question." She put her hand to her chin in contemplation. "Ooh! I know. I was in the hospital, but because I was in a car accident. And we didn't tell anyone because we didn't want the hospital flooded with fans and well-wishers."

"It's not your fault, it makes you seem more vulnerable for being injured and more spunky for clawing your way back... Yeah, yeah, that could work." Matsuda was starting to get into his role, I think.

"And," she said in a voice overflowing with melodrama, "Misa's ever-faithful bodyguard Shoko Maki, ignoring her own wounds, heroically pulls her frail little body from the burning wreckage and brings her back to life with mouth-to-mouth!" She put her hand on her chin and glanced off to the side. "Actually, we should write that down, we might want to do a movie with that."

"That was 'The Bodyguard'," Aizawa said without looking up, "The one where Whitney Houston sang 'My Heart Will Go On'."

"Damn it!" Misa snapped.

I was also kind of unsettled by it. "Uh. Misa. Misa... ummm, Misa? Light?" My what card didn't work for this. I needed a 'what about' card.

"Light, what about Light?" she asked in genuine confusion. "He couldn't have pulled me out of a car accident, people saw him since then." She blinked at me a couple times. "Aren't you hot in that jacket all the time? Ryuzaki keeps the heat turned up, I'm boiling. It's... You know it's okay. Everyone here is on the team anyway." I was a little hot, to be perfectly honest. But that wasn't why she was asking me.

I slowly slipped out of my jacket, revealing the black tank top I had underneath it. Just like she'd wanted, she could see my scars. And she just started... running her finger up the scar on my arm. Like she was a child pushing a toy train or something. This time, I wasn't stopping her. I just watched the top of her head, watched her pigtails jiggle. There were like five other people here. One of them was her boyfriend. He was like three meters away.

"They're really beautiful," Misa said. she was lingering near my elbow. Could anyone see me blushing? "Hey, would you mind if... Can I use them for, like, a character?" She looked up at me with her big blue eyes full of promise. "Not in this movie, we already shot the ending. But, like, a future project, a movie or a shoot or something. Get makeup to give me the same pattern." My arm was ripped open when I was forced to commit suicide by leaping off a cliff, gouging my flesh on the jagged rocks and forever marring it. Her finger was wobbling back and forth on that gouge, pressing down ever so slightly on the raised, pale mark. Because it was interesting.

She liked it. I liked being liked. I hadn't had any romantic contact in the better part of a year, and I was afraid to do anything in my room because I didn't know if Ryuzaki put cameras in it. I just closed my eyes. I closed my eyes and I pretended it was Raye, just for a second. Raye was back because someone felt good about me. Just for a little bit, everything felt okay. Misa probably had no idea what kind of significance I assigned to this, but, it didn't matter. We could be friends. I could be a cool person she liked to see. That felt real nice too.

"TIME!" said Light, as he finished his puzzle with a dramatic flourish that was way too over-the-top for simply writing something down. At the noise, Misa got up and wandered her way over to him, to see what he was up to. 

"Six minutes forty seconds," said Ryuzaki. "New record."

"Okay, I never said I could outrace you," said Aiber. He hadn't done anything yet, but he was still here in case we needed him, and he got paid either way. He scratched his chin. "Seven letter word, 'acquired clumsiness', A-P-blank-blank-blank-blank-A."

"Is it... ooh, what was it... 'Apraxia'?" Wow, Misa must have really done her research into strange disorders caused by head injuries.

"Then 28 down, 'sign of crossing', is 'PED XING', that fits."

"See? I know things," she said, and stuck out her tongue. Ryuzaki turned his attention back to his shortcake, which looked to be mostly frosting.

"Ryuzaki... I actually need to talk to you about something," said Light. "Misa and I were the two biggest Kira candidates, so if you die, we're probably going to be held responsible, right?"

"There's a new one at Yotsuba," he said around his fork. "Misa might be okay."

"Ryuzaki, what if you die of diabetes?" Light asked. Misa and Mogi started snickering. "I'm serious. I am handcuffed to you. You've never eaten a vegetable or a fruit in my presence." Ryuzaki waved a strawberry at him. "That's a berry, not a fruit," he said, with just the barest hint of frustration seeping into his voice. 

"A strawberry is an accessory fruit," Ryuzaki... corrected? whined? It was becoming more and more clear that Light was the real one in charge around here, and Ryuzaki was just spinning his wheels. More than the rest of us, I mean. 

"Whatever!" Misa chimed in. "He's right, you know! I'm trying to be reasonable about you taking precautions but blowing Light's head off because you got a heart attack the old-fashioned way is just not cool."

"You... could afford to have more healthy habits," said Soichiro. He was in the corner reading his newspaper. "If your life is tied to my son's."

Ryuzaki steepled his fingers in contemplation. "Hm. Does this have anything to do with the amount of apples you eat, Light? Watari's told me you have quite an appetite. What did it say-- that gods of death like apples?"

Light looked defensive but cool, like every other time he got vaguely accused of bring Kira. Every inconsequential detail was an accusation, allegedly testing his reasoning and memory... by now, mostly our patience. I admit being leery of Yagami at first. I had a flash where I thought I remembered him doing it, but I also remembered Matsuda in the room with me and Raye, and Mogi sitting next to me on the All Nippon Airways flight and being a total dick and trying to smother me with his inflight pillow. And the natural thought when presented with Ryuzaki's insistence was that he was lying about Light not being Kira, and his ego had driven him to the point where only he was allowed to prove it. Then, when you saw the complete insubstantiality of everything he accused Light with, it became clear this was an exercise, and not a good one.

"You showed me the message when I was hungry," Light said. "I thought 'man, when was the last time I had a good apple?' and I simply haven't broken the habit. I feel healthier, too. If Watari started buying them, would you eat them?" This had to have been humiliating. Light talking down to him like a child. I didn't know if Ryuzaki even noticed these kinds of dominance games, or cared, but they were starting to get on my nerves. Misa looked a bit put out too, even though she had more stake in it. Matsuda was clearly enjoying seeing Ryuzaki be the low man in the operation.

Ryuzaki rolled his eyes and scooted over to the console to call Watari, dragging Light's chair with him. "Watari. The next time you get our food, get us... Get me some apples, I suppose. For a health diet."

"Of course, sir," came Watari's voice over the link. "I was about to call you. Geraldo Coil has just been contracted to find out the identity of L."

It was like a light flicking on. Like Clark Kent in a Superman costume realizing he could be Superman. Ryuzaki was here, focused, alert, ready, eager. Just like that. "He has, has he? Who is the client?"

"The client is anonymous. But used an Internet cafe that mostly does business in Yokohama."

"Excellent, Watari," he smiled. Geraldo Coil was the 'second-best' detective in the world... well, I knew Ryuzaki's ruse, I had some extra information, but even if I could actually explain it in a comprehensible fashion it would be rude to steal his moment.

"Geraldo Coil?" Soichiro said with concern. "This could be trouble. He's undoubtedly been hired by Yotsuba. He may be able to sniff out our trail."

Ryuzaki was actually smiling. "Mmm. Definitely Yotsuba. They must be afraid I might be able to uncover their actions. They are trying to be proactive."

"So we're short-handed, we have no police backup, and now we're going to have to play defense as well," Mogi said. "That's going to be a problem."

"It's not going to be a problem at all." Ryuzaki turned around in his chair and looked up at everyone, smiling. He was getting a lot more satisfaction out of this twist than I think it warranted. "Can you keep a secret?" Light, Misa, Matsuda, Aizawa, Soichiro and Mogi nodded. "Geraldo Coil... is me. I already operate under a false identity, why not construct another for when the situation calls for it? So really, of the five greatest detectives in the world, Denevue is number 2, Adrian Monk is number 3, and Enrique Khamil is number 4. Nobody really keeps track of the sixth greatest detective, but someone else is number 5."

"Geraldo Coil is also me!" Aiber said as he got up. He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "I better start getting warmed up. I enjoy playing Coil, he's a fun character. He's kind of a dick like you, Ryuzaki. But he's charming." 

"I'm flattered," Ryuzaki deadpanned. "We have our way in now. If they meet in the same place again, Wedy will have it locked down, and if they do not, Aiber will be able to determine their meeting spot." He looked up at his master display screen, showing Aiber with Coil's fake vital statistics. "Now is when we start taking action."

He was right. Today, Wedy had given me an envelope.

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

As I did two nights a week, I sat at my desktop computer and booted up World of Warcraft, to send my 'Blood Elf Paladin' named 'Justiceangel' to 'Serpentshrine Cavern' and kill the minions of 'Lady Vashj' with a bunch of 'losers'. I wasn't actually enough of a hikikomori to want to play this on my own, but I bought an account anyway because at the high levels, play consisted of getting 24 other pathetic shut-ins together to attack imaginary monsters while you yelled at each other over a voice-chat program called Ventrilo about tanks and aggro and overheals and other crap. The conversation was loud and chaotic and would perfectly cover any OTHER talking I wanted to have going on, L didn't know anything about how the game worked -- most Japanese people play Final Fantasy XI, which is even worse -- and I could appear to be actively involved in it while I was actually doing something completely different. 

My first instinct was to think that pathetic, shiftless men such as these would have no place in my new order. Upon further consideration, though, I realized that wasn't exactly the best plan. Even in the glorious Golden Age of peace and enlightenment I will reign over as a God, we will probably still need tech support and IT guys.

I cradled my phone in my lap, almost entirely hidden from Ryuzaki's sight. He latched onto it immediately, demanding I tell him what I was doing. Why, I'm just looking up the strategy information, Ryuzaki! I need to know what the monsters are doing, that's why I'm using my phone out of your sight! He clearly couldn't tell if I'd found some way to bypass his monitoring system and use the untraceable cell phone tower the other investigators enjoyed. So he snatched it out of my hand. Told me he would look up what I needed. 

And that was how I got him to sit down next to me, reading to me about Hydross the Unstable, while I played the game entirely with my mouse hand and had a very fruitful conversation with the other.

//REMRYUK - Level 1 Undead Warlock - Tirisfal Glades: Deathknell  
1 Player Total.

To [Remryuk]: Got Rem msg. Good 

[Remryuk] whispered you: This is an unusual way for a god to contact a disciple.

To [Remryuk]: Game chat no log/watch

[Remryuk] whispered you: You seem distracted. Shall I come back when you aren't raiding, or do we have something important to talk about?//

Cute. Baiting an admission out of me, or just being coy. I could warn him about Geraldo Coil, but that wouldn't be prudent. Like Ryuzaki said: if you had one false ID, why not another? Why not a third? If I warned him off Coil, and he went to a competitor, he might just get Ryuzaki again. And Ryuzaki would know there was a mole. I wasn't quite at the place where that would make him suspect someone other than me. 

One eye on health bars. One eye on the top of Ryuzaki's head. Flick between for hidden words. "Light. It says here one encounter is fished up with a fishing pole. I wouldn't mind seeing that."

"It's not that impressive, it just spawns in," I told him. "But I'll tell you if we're summoning him." Control-8 to hide the window when he looks. Control-8 to bring it up when he sits back down. The text and notifications move so fast that he cannot notice it even if I'm late in hiding my conversation -- he sees just another band of colored text. Because he's careless. And he gets bored easily.

//To [Remryuk]: Cut BS

To [Remryuk]: God of death give msg 

To [Remryuk]: U know what abt

To [Remryuk]: Rem OK?

[Remryuk] whispered you: Rem is depressing. 

To [Remryuk]: Yup

To [Remryuk]: Tell Rem: our friend safe. Plan changed. Don't

[Remryuk] whispered you: Don't what?

To [Remryuk]: See friend w/o approval. Try help may make danger.

[Remryuk] whispered you: uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuynndrstud

[Remryuk] whispered you: Rem is not very experienced with a keyboard.//

I noticed my new Kira hadn't identified himself, hadn't given out any info he didn't already know I had. Frustrating, but smart. I was going to need him to stick around for a while. L couldn't get the Note too soon, not until I had my bona fides. And if I became L and always was just behind that rascally Kira, people would prooooooobably get suspicious.

"Justice! Stop healing! You have an inner demon!" came the throaty, mucous-choked voice in my ear. For a moment I told myself he's referring to a lack of moral clarity, an inner specter of doubt, instead of a purple version of my character model throwing wads of evil goo at me. But the latter is the only one that really exists. Sort of.

//To [Remryuk]: Smoke detector

To [Remryuk]: When change battery?

To [Remryuk]: Recently

[Remryuk] whispered you: When did I last change the battery in my smoke detector? Never. I haven't owned the house for long enough.//

Cute. He may be trying to bait me, to see if I go after a member of his council who just bought a house. But the speed at which he formulated the response probably tells me something about him anyway.

I had a specific instruction to give him that would take more fluent writing to convey what and more importantly why I needed something done. I played normally for a few minutes, and when I was helping to my utmost, the group succeeded. "Okay, Ryuzaki, what's a Holy Paladin supposed to do on Morogrim again?" I asked. He sat down against the wall with his phone, and he popped his neck. He'd be down there for thirty seconds at least when he did that. Then I muttered, "Oh, like hell that's a hunter weapon, come on man," perfectly justifying my typing into chat.

//To [Remryuk]: Given what happens to you should your book be burned, it's important for you to care about fire safety.// This was important. He had to care. He had to still care when he lost his memories of the Note. //I want you to take a blank page, fold it up, and hide it in one of your smoke detectors. This is the last place anyone will look for an emergency backup. But I am serious about fire safety -- please, get in the habit of changing the batteries every six months.

[Remryuk] whispered you: That was verbose all of a sudden.

[Remryuk] whispered you: KK.//

If possible, I was going to get this guy out by removing his memories. And then in six months, he was going to change his battery, he was going to touch it, and he was going to start all over again. And I would catch him. And I would pretend to lament the fact that Kira was eternal.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

Wedy gave me an envelope. She sealed it with a kiss. It had an address and a time. August 24, from 9 to 11:30 PM. Room 12 at the Health Tokimeki Clinic. Unlike in the States, 'Health' in a Japanese business had a connotation of 'massage'. Exactly like in the States, 'massage' meant 'prostitute'. 

And now here I was. Idling my bike outside this luxury, upscale brothel. Kitamura's car wasn't here. His driver would pick him up when he was done. I killed the engine, I took my crutch, and I double-checked all my cards and components. Everything I needed to communicate. No, not everything. There was also my gun, secure and beloved in my armpit. 

The crutch's adjustable pin made its distinctive click every time I put my weight on it. My step was even, regular, as I approached the front desk. The building was divided up around a central garden area, with all the rooms around it in a square. Maybe this building was a shrine in a past life. The white-clad attendant at the desk looked at my leg, then at me, and bowed. "I'm sorry, Miss! While Health Tokimeki Clinic would love to assist you, I'm afraid we're a rather specialist clinic, and we cannot--"

I slapped a wad of ten-thousand yen notes on the counter. The L slush fund had come through. I didn't say anything, though. Had to save that up. All my energy was going to room 12. 

"--my apologies, ma'am, you are better aware of your medical needs than I." Another obsequious bow. "Do you have any specific requests, miss...?"

I put one hand over my mouth and shook the other. It wasn't actual sign language, I wouldn't be able to use it if it wasn't something I just made up, but it got the point across. "Your nurse should not speak." Well, I thought it would get the point across. "No? Oh, my apologies. You cannot speak. Of course, miss. If you would please go to room 8 and disrobe, I will ensure that you meet an attendant who is skilled in nonverbal communication." She must have been waiting a while to use that line. She handed me a room key and pointed me down. There was no concern I was an angry wife come for her husband. I was a scarred, crippled, brain-damaged freak. Nobody could have loved me. The one who did was gone.

I was here. Now. Doing it. I wasn't giddy, I wasn't terrified. I felt kind of disbelieving. Was it going to be this easy? Just have Wedy drop the address in my lap and that was it?

No, that wasn't it. I had earned this. She thought I earned this by helping melt her transmitter before it was detected. She was wrong. I earned this walking the parallel bars and falling and screaming in pain I couldn't articulate. I earned this pushing myself on the giant rubber ball and smashing my elbow against the floor. I earned this with the giant novelty pencil. I paid for this with every word I lost. I paid in blood and brain matter. 

I crawled my way out of my grave. I assembled myself out of the blasted pieces of my own corpse. The entire time knowing that someone did this to me, someone did this to Raye, someone thought he had the right, and he was going to pay. That's how I earned this. The fact I was here at all. This gun was a promise, now I was keeping it.

The only security was the guardrail to keep you from falling into the garden. No matter what it is, people think a traditional garden makes it more classy. Nothing stopped me from walking up to room 12. Nothing stopped me from listening at the door and hearing what was going on inside.

"This one is a hardened criminal, X! If she won't confess to being Kira, we'll have to use our advanced methods!" said an older man.

"Excellent deduction, L!" said a younger woman. "Maybe some hot wax will loosen this criminal's lips!"

And that was when I kicked the door in. There was Kitamura, shirt unbuttoned, pants hanging open just like his mouth and his eyes when he saw the gun I leveled at his head. There was a woman in dominatrix gear next to him, white-haired and red-eyed, who instantly dropped the candle she was holding and put her hands up. On the massive bed adjacent to them, a brunette was blindfolded and frog-tied with red marks on her ass. "Oh, no!" she squealed. "Don't torture me! I swear I don't know anything!" The other two stayed in shocked silence as I stared at my prey. "...X? L? What's going on?"

"Our client's wife is here with a gun, Kimiko," the white-haired one hissed. I dragged the door closed with my heel, and I slapped on the lights. No backlighting. Full illumination. No mistaking who I was.

He stared at me in desperate incomprehension. "Ladies... I've never seen this woman before in my life."

He knew me well enough to send Raye off to die so his friend could 'get' me. He didn't even know what I looked like? I knew who he was. No mistaking that sodden face. "A gun!?" the bound girl squealed, and futilely started trying to hop in place. "Kioko, tell her we don't screen the clients! We don't know who he is!"

"Kitamura!" I spat like the sound itself was repulsive. I gestured with the gun for him to move closer to the corner, away from his hookers. "Kitamura. Kita, Kitamuraaaa... Uh. Um."

"Are... are you okay, miss?" asked the white-haired one, Kioko. Her concern was genuine because she was becoming convinced I was a crazy person. I flung the little informational card the hospital gave me at her, and I nodded for her to pick it up. "Okay... //I have a condition called 'expressive aphasia'. This makes every word I say very difficult, like when you have the right word on the tip of your tongue but can't grasp it! I may cry sometimes when I have difficulty speaking, and though I don't mean to be rude, it's impossible for me to address others with the proper level of formality. I ask for your patience as we learn to communicate, but if we both try our hardest I know we can have a productive relationship!//"

I wasn't looking away from Kitamura. I wasn't blinking. My free hand slowly went to my head and pointed. Then I pointed at him. "Hurt."

Kioko was giving me that nod of someone who thinks she will die if she doesn't emotionally validate you every second. "Okay. So. Your brain was hurt. You have brain damage. And it makes you unable to talk. And you think that our client is responsible. Sir, have you... hit anyone with your car recently?"

"No! No!" he stammered. "I have a driver anyway, I swear I don't know what this woman is."

"Miss, let's just put the weapon down, and we'll be very patient with you while you try to tell us what's wrong, okay?"

How many lives can you have ruined that the fact of my presence isn't narrowing it down? Did you forget? Did you make yourself forget? Has it still not occurred to you that what you did MAY HAVE BEEN WRONG? "Forget. Uh. Forget, and... wrong..." No. No that wasn't what I wanted. I pulled out the microcassette recorder, I hit play, and I tossed it onto the bed. Kimiko and Kioko just looked more confused, as neither of them spoke English. I didn't care.

Kitamura's voice on the tape laughed. "Oh! Oh, I got a good one." At this point the color drained out of the real Kitamura's face like his jaw had been slashed off.

"Who?" The other voice was one he knew well. 

"Pember. Raye Pember." On the tape, Kitamura said it with satisfaction. In the real world, he was horrified. "You... you're Naomi Misora," he whispered.

That's my god damn name all right. "First off, I think you mean Raye Penber with an 'N', and second, why do I want to get rid of him?"

"You don't, really, but you wanna get Misora back, don't you?" Kitamura on the tape was giving a hot tip to a friend. Kitamura in the real world was staring at the tape recorder like it was about to cause a nuclear detonation. "N-now wait, you have to--"

"NNNGH!" I grunted to silence him. No word. He didn't need a word. He yipped and kept his hands up. 

"Ohhhh!" The man on the tape laughed. It's easy. Genuine. A man just hanging around with his pal. "That is a good one. No marriage, no kids, no reason for the gal that cracked the BB case to retire early."

Kitamura on the tape gurgled and tried to imitate Raye without knowing what he sounded like. Never having heard his gentle reassuring tone or the shrill way he got the giggles or his confidence and assurance when everything around him was going wrong. "Naomi... with my last breath... I ask you to avenge me!"

And then his friend was trying my voice. "Oh Raye! I swear that I'll hunt down the criminals of the world in your memory!"

And then the tape clicked to a stop and we were standing there in silence, in this room that stank of sex and candles. He said nothing. I said nothing. Kimiko started to say something, but was hushed into silence by her coworker. Just the two of us, his two onlookers, and my friend the gun. 

"Y... You... Kira didn't kill you..." he stammered with awe.

Oh, Kira did kill me. But I came back because I wasn't done with you. "Dead." I was a fucking revenant. My flesh was animated by his betrayals.

"Miss..." Kioko said, though now like she knew something was happening and I wasn't just crazy. "We're not involved with whatever is happening... I can just untie my friend here, and we can go."

"Tell," I growled. I stared at Kitamura, then pointed to the girls. "TELL! Tell, ah, and... tell!" What was the thing she was doing? I gesticulated at her before saying "Open!" She stared at me. She had no idea what the hell I meant, that it was okay to open her coworker's bindings. 

"I'm... see girls, I'm a deputy director in the NPA," Kitamura said with a nervous chuckle. I tried to mime untying with one hand. They should get to go once they know what is happening. "Remember those brave FBI agents from America who died hunting Kira? Her fiance was unfortunately one of--"

"NnnnngggGGAAAAAAAAAAAH!" I growled in fury. Lying prick! Useless lying asshole! What was even the point? Could he just not stop himself from being a piece of shit?

"--I suggested that they send her fiance, so that if he died she wouldn't quit the force!" he added, like he knew he was caught doing something that could have never worked. Kioko looked at him with disgust.

"Open," I told her again. How come she couldn't get it? I felt for the divot on the laminated edge of my note card. Notched so they could be picked by touch. //WHY: I am asking a question about causality or origin!// Why do you get to decide whose lives to ruin, Kitamura? Why are you allowed to play God? "A...um, allow."

"I... I allowed Director Sorenson to make that call because I believed he knew what was best for his organization!" Kitamura stammered. Argh! No! That's not what I was saying! "It was wrong that Mr. Penber was going to keep you barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen! Walter, Walter told me that would be wasting a gift, a gift the world needed! I believed him!"

Who made you the world? When did the world get to kill people I loved so I got to be more useful to it? Who gave you the right to live my life and end his? //WHO: I am asking a question about a person!// "Uh. Uhh. Pick."

"Y-- you must have heard the whole tape!" Kitamura sniveled. "Sorenson picked the agents! I, I was just his cheerleader!" No! No god damn it, you didn't know what I was saying, you're trying to weasel your way out of this, why can't I, why don't you see?

You're supposed to be cowering in terror, you're supposed to be confronting the atrocity you committed! Not wheedling! Why do you think you can wheedle out of this? You're supposed to be destroyed by seeing me! You're, you don't even know how awful you are! You haven't even tried to convince me you felt any remorse! I can't, I can't even communicate to you how awful what you did was!

Tears of frustration flowed down my cheeks. Kioko was getting the hint now and undoing the bindings on her colleague. There was one last word in my repertoire, one I knew had effectiveness. I took two steps closer, leaving the door open for the hookers to escape. I stared him down. "Beg."

"Wh-what?" he stammered. Like he didn't know. 

"BEG!" I wanted him to beg for his life. I wanted him to grovel and debase himself. I wanted him to know he couldn't be degraded more than I had been. I wanted to give him the chance to live he didn't give either of us. 

"P-Please! Please, don't kill me! I can, I can make sure you are well taken care of!" he said. His hands were clasped together in prayer. Because that was what he saw in movies. "Nobody needs to know about any of this, we can all walk away! You can find a nice man who--"

BLAM! BLAM! 

Kitamura screamed.

BLAM! BLAM!

Kioko screamed.

BLAM! BLAM!

Kimiko screamed. 

BLAM! BLAM!

The customers next door screamed. 

BLAM! BLAM!

And I screamed.

The gun was empty. I threw it to the floor in disgust and grabbed my head, sobbing. Chunks of plaster rained down over Kitamura from where I'd emptied the gun into the ceiling. He clutched his chest in terror and slumped against the wall. Kioko sprinted past me out of the room, and Kimiko locked herself in the toilet, both screaming.

The police told me later he died of a fear-induced heart attack. The law here was the same as in America, they said, and I had committed murder just as certainly as if I had struck him with the bullets. They said I was a cop-killer who was going to be murdered in prison before I even got a chance to hang. They kept saying that for 6 hours and 40 minutes, and then they gave me my gun back and let me go.

They said I had murdered him. It was a lie. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. My chance for revenge, I couldn't take it. I turned the gun away. He wasn't even sorry and I couldn't do it. I was weak and useless and stupid and I had a worthless, broken brain. I couldn't take revenge. I couldn't take anything. Powerlessness was the only rule of this world.

I walked back to where I parked my bike, alone, in shame. I rode back to L Plaza. The guard at the garage took my check-in without looking at or speaking to me. Nobody was in the command center. Nobody met me on my floor. I fell into my bed without even taking off my boots and I cried. I cried like every other day of my broken, worthless life.

### 
    
    
    * M I S A *

"Lolita ga Gotoku" finished the on-location shooting at the fountain, which meant we got to be inside, on sets, doing interior shots. My character, Kasumi Judgment, was confronting the Chairwoman over the man they both loved. And getting her first orders, and reporting a successful assassination, and chatting to her girlfriend out in the hall. Someone else was going to need the set so we needed to use it up. 

The Chairwoman insisted her face be cast in shadow at all times. She said it was for artistic integrity. And Takarazuka just opened a new show called "Shadow Play" where the stage was covered by gauze and backlit, leaving it to the audience to interpret which actress was the lead singer in each song as that changed the meaning of the lyrics. To blaze new trails in performing arts. 

People were afraid of Kira. People whose job it was to have their names and faces out there for others to enjoy were getting afraid of it. Before I was arrested, I yelled at a fellow performer about that, I told her that Kira only goes after the corrupt and wicked. But... he made mistakes. Even if he didn't make many, that was no consolation to people like Naomi and Raye. You don't want to be the one mistake. A one in a million mistake isn't very comforting when that one is you. We had to make sure Kira was something people could trust. That he built a perfect world where people didn't live in fear, instead of switching one terror for another.

And... maybe there was something he could do for Naomi. Something to make it right. Or at least show how sorry he was. Naomi, and Raye, and the investigation member Ukita, and the reporter Hibima. He's building a perfect world, he has to be able to do something. If we make him understand how serious these things were, then he can figure out how to earn forgiveness.

Naomi was following me. Well, Shoko Maki was. I didn't know if she considered that another, distinct character. She was my bodyguard, most of the time. Last couple of days, this came with no small talk, no joking around. Just looking around for threats. I spent ten hours a day with her and I missed her. Matsuda was trying to pick up the slack, but he was trying too hard and knew it. So when we broke for lunch, I called Light, like I always do. I told him I loved him, he told me he loved me, I told him what we'd done in the film, he told me Ryuzaki hadn't done anything. Then I had lunch in my trailer, just me and "Shoko". Side by side, eating bentos packed by craft services. 

"So... Feeling pretty lousy again, huh?" I asked. She just slowly nodded. Slow was how I knew it was really a nod. "Shoko... Where were you on Friday? The 24th?"

She just looked at me quizzically.

I continued. "Because you didn't really tell me and... I was a little scared without my bodyguard." She started looking away like she didn't buy it. "No, it's true! I know that... the talent agency had other reasons to assign you," since someone might have been listening. "But you still are my bodyguard! I mean... I had a stalker come at me with a knife once! I was so scared, I, I... I don't even remember how I got out of it. I blacked out. But I could have died! And, you know... you could take care of someone like that if another one shows up."

"Uh... Matsuda," she said.

"Maybe, but I don't trust him as much." It was true. Nice guy, but not quite as all there. "It's okay to have your own life, but, I heard that that police guy got killed, and I was afraid there was going to be some kind of war on, on f-former Kira supporters," Misa why are you bringing that up in front of her, "so I was scared someone might come after me again! Just, you know, can you warn me next time? Keep your phone on?"

She looked contemplative in the quiet. Then she just said, "Apology." And she held out her arm, and I leaned into her, and she into me, and she was holding me. And he gave me a little reassuring shake. And it was nice. She didn't need to talk to tell me what she meant. She apologized, and she knew how important she was, and she was going to be a reassuring presence there for me, and everything was going to be good. I grabbed her hand and I squeezed. And I remembered something. 

"Shoko... have you noticed I had a hard time holding the props today? Like I kept dropping the pen when Kasumi was signing the death warrant. Is that a problem?" And she looked at me. And she sighed, but it was warm. And she reached into her pocket, and she pulled out her purple squish ball, bringing her notepad out with it. She handed me the ball and I understood. "I haven't recovered my hand enough. Gotcha. Thanks for giving me your ball. Hey, the guy who does the chibi art is here, he can do some decals of you for some new cue cards, if you want!"

She scratched out a note. //LIKE IS. CHEER.//

I nuzzled my head into her side. "Aww, that's nice. I'm glad something I did cheered you up." I was pretty worthless, so any time I had a chance to do something good, I had to take it. 

Then she handed me another note. //FRDAY. POLICE DEAD = KITAMURA. KILL I KITAMURA.// The word "kill" had been crossed out, and replaced with //TRY//.

I gasped. "You--" but she put a finger over my mouth. I lowered my voice to a whisper. "You tr-tried to kill him? Why? Because he was allies with Kira?"

Slowly, she shook her head. My breath hung in my throat as she composed the next message. //KITAMURA KILL RAYE. SEND -> KILL. WANT I WORK NOT FAMILY//

"He... He killed... no. He sent Raye to be killed? By Kira?" This was... a lot to deal with. I wasn't sure I was reading her right, much less how to feel about it! "So you work not family... So you wouldn't leave work to start a family? Is that right?"

She nodded. "Friend, ah. Ummmmm. Friend, FBI."

"You have... He had a friend in the FBI. Oh, and he was doing that for his friend in the FBI." I was focusing on my breathing. I couldn't flip out. She was sharing something important with me, and we could be discovered. "That... that's horrible. How could anyone do that?" How did Kira MISS a guy like that? If there was any more proof I needed that the new Kira wasn't the old one, this was it. Kira would never, ever make a deal with someone like this. Even when Kira killed the guy he sent out. Kira may not have known everything. This guy, this guy knew what he was doing. "So you tried to kill him. And... what happened?"

"C... Not. Not. Can. Uhhhhh. Ummmm... Ah, and, uh, and weak."

So I grabbed her. I held her and I wouldn't let her go and I said the most I could. "I still believe in you. You're strong." Because she was. She was just merciful too.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

So here we were. Wedy had nailed down the transmission profile of the Yotsuba Yokohama building, and encrusted its upper meeting floors with customized bugs. She'd gotten us license plates from the parking garage and we'd pieced together profiles of the most likely suspects. And now that they were filing in to their somewhat ornate meeting chamber, we could see who they were. Seven of them at an eight sided table. Five men and two women. Yotsuba's Yokohama offices were mostly independent, dealing in Yokohama finance, real estate, shipping, and technology. But not independent enough that their senior executives could have this meeting without fear of their superiors finding out. And we'd see and hear it perfectly.

And that was all we could do. That was all I could do.

"So then," said a man when the door closed and latched. Reddish hair. Hiraga Shohei, International Shipping. Looked to be the informal leader of the group. "Now that we're all here. What is the first item on the docket for our prosperity council?"

"How about Koreyoshi Kitamura signs a peace accord with Kira and two weeks later he gets his dick shot off?" snapped an old woman with fading orange hair. Eba Watsuji, Commercial Real Estate. I could see the cigarette she wished she had in her hands. "That seems like something L would do to me."

"Nobody got their dick shot off. What are you even talking about?" Black hair, young face, man. Yoshitake Takara, Residential Real Estate. "Why would L want to shoot off a guy's dick?"

"Ugh, because it's a figure of speech." Heavier man, bald. Koin Hatanaka, Heavy Manufacturing. "L would want to make an example of him, Yoshi."

"Yeah, that's a Kira problem." Dark blue hair, male, still youngish. Isamu Egawa, Home Appliances. "But is it really an us problem? If Kira needs our help, I'm sure... Actually I'm sure he doesn't need our help."

"L is our problem too, Isamu!" said Mayo Juba, headed up Materials R&D. Round, matronly type of woman, wide waist and wide smile and black bowl cut. "I hope everyone read the report we received."

"The report is bullshit!" said the young man with the grey hair. Daisuke Sato. Communications Technology. "I could have done it in half an hour on Wikipedia. This is all stuff everyone already knows about L."

Seven of them. Not too formal; must know and trust each other. Not the highest ranks of their company, but interested in expanding its fortunes and their own. Rankling at the restrictions imposed from above, each thinks they can and deserve to do better. And none of them admitted to being Kira. One of them acted like Kira would ask them for something, another that his problems were not theirs. One of them was contacting Kira. One of them was pretending to, to cover their killings up. My hands were shaking. 

"Is one of them missing?" Misa asked of Light. "Or can they not find a heppa... a setpa... a seven-sided table?" Good question. Were they killing one of their own last week? It sounded menacing, but nobody had gone missing. They didn't seem distressed. Maybe there just weren't any heptagonal tables.

"People, people!" Hiraga. "Can we please focus? Yes, the first item is the unfortunate death of Koreyoshi Kitamura. However! I have reason to believe this was not L's doing. My inside source informs me that while Kitamura's death was filed as murder, and there was a gun discharged, the proximate cause of death was fear-induced heart attack. And that the police will not be pursuing the investigation."

Everyone on the screen and half of them in this room sounded shocked. Ryuzaki just looked at me. He knew. He said nothing.

"So," Hiraga continued, "it is clear to me what happened. Kitamura crossed Kira in some way. The police are honoring his deal by not investigating a killing he committed." What? No. No! That wasn't it! I was... I was enraged and I didn't even know what I wanted him to say instead. That it was me? It hadn't been me. It hadn't been Kira. Or maybe it had. Maybe he was trying to steal from me again.

"So then!" Mayo said with a clap of her hands. "As I was trying to say to--"

"Mayo, please. Our docket?" Hiraga said. "...Okay. The next thing we are discussing is Geraldo Coil's report. Go ahead."

"...as I was trying to say to Daisuke, the report doesn't have much information on L. But at the end, it says 'If you continue killing financial rivals at your current pace, L will find it easy to track you down.' He figured us out!"

"But he hasn't gone to L, and likely intends to keep working with us." Isamu. "He seemed not to be a fan of L either."

"Could be he hates being second banana." Yoshitake.

"So, we tone it down." Koin. "Motion to cut to one kill a week until we find L?"

Six yeas, one nay, from Eba. 

"All right... So then who is the guy this week?" Yoshitake again. "I say the time is right for Sachi Abe. Heavy drinker, heavy smoker, excellent manager. His properties will be going for a song once Flower loses the one guy who keeps track of them."

"If you want some piddly-ass houses," croaked Eba. "Banhi Pak is wasting prime real estate with a family laundry his kids don't know how to operate. He gets mugged, kids have to sell, now we have a foothold in Gumyoji. Get real upscale, soon Banhi's neighbors can't afford the rent and have to sell."

"Oh, the Gumyoji tourist trap is a fool's errand!" Koin teased. "Now, I think we're running out of time on this IPO, if you'll hear me out..."

They were arguing. They were bickering. They were teasing each other. They were laughing like friends who had earned each other's respect. While they talked about murdering people for, for a few million yen here, a few million yen there. It was a joke to them. A game. Find someone tangentially connected to a source of wealth. Kill them. win points. 

I should've been paying close attention to them, see who signaled they were Kira. I would have to watch the tape later. I was too mad to see straight. Hate and fear and powerlessness were all washing over me again. I had to focus. I had to get myself thinking straight. 

They eventually decided on Santoro Zansai, of Earth Liberation Front, who was blocking some kind of shopping mall. He had a family history of high blood pressure. A stroke wouldn't be suspicious. And the moment they decided this, Misa started writing in her notebook, saying her words aloud. "//SANTORO... ZANSAI... STROKE.// Okay. If we warn him and we warn the hospital, they have a much better chance of saving him, right? Yoko did one of those public service announcements about it."

"Dead." I said. 

"well, I mean, he has to get dead, but maybe if they are too fast fixing his stroke, they can fix a heart attack too, and bring him back from that? Or, like, isn't there an operation where they kill you on the table so they can work on you without your heart messing things up, and they like Frankenstein you back? Maybe if he's already dead it just leaves him alone."

"Far too risky," Ryuzaki said. "Especially risky for a man in as poor health as him, and there's no way of us knowing when he is scheduled to die." He shoved a bit of shortcake into his mouth. "But there's no way to stop them at this point," he said with only a slight spray of crumbs. With only one kill, the meeting was winding down. "Aside from Watari shooting one of them, and that," gulp, "that has a small chance of working. They all have their phones turned off, and will be until they can no longer speak to each other." He clasped his fingers to his chin. He was working something. He was back, I think. "So some form of medical treatment may indeed be our best option. It would be very useful to see the specifics of Kira's workings, and what parameters may be required to recover from death. Since we don't have a time... if miss Naomi does not mind pushing her medical affairs back by a week, I can ensure Mr. Zansai spends the next week next to a crash cart."

Of course I didn't mind. My thousandth knee surgery didn't outrank not being Kira'd to death. Misa pumped her fist in the air. "Yay!" 

Ryuzaki smiled. "Good. Now in exchange, I need your help, miss Amane. You are the next part of the plan."

"Whoa, wait a second, hold on..." Light said. 

"Miss Amane was imprisoned by L on suspicion of being the second Kira, wasn't she?" Ryuzaki said with a grin. "Geraldo Coil would find this. He is a great detective, after all. He would want to put the Yotsuba Prosperity Council together with their information source. She would insist on meeting in person. Because she was still looking for Kira. And would do anything to prove her love."

It dawned on Light first, and then seeing that there was something to dawn made it dawn on me. "We just heard each of them detail a person that they want killed. She can ask Kira to anonymously send a picture of who they want dead to prove herself... and we'll know who messaged her by whose picture is sent."

"Exactly." Ryuzaki smiled darkly.

"I'll do it!" Misa proclaimed, over Light and my objections. "I wanna be useful to the investigation, and I am an actress. I can act like I'm crazy for Kira with no problems."

"That's clever, Ryuzaki" said Light. "You're almost back on your form. But you can't just send Misa off to meet a bunch of murderous business people who are involved in real estate so I ASSUME have yakuza ties."

"Why not? She's going to have a bodyguard."

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

One thing was frustrating: Rem sat in the center of the table the entire time. I couldn't tell who the new Kira was by following her. I couldn't get a hint who the new Kira was by listening to them argue, either. I had the slightest twinge of sympathy for Ryuzaki -- this task he failed at really was difficult. If you refused to play to win. 

The first night after the meeting, Ryuzaki watched me play my game very, very intently. Much more than he even had at first. I activated abilities I didn't need, I used spells that were useless, all to keep up the illusion of frantic gameplay. He was very interested in the giant water monster, the blind demon hunter, and the fish fished out of the hole. and we talked. You know, like friends do.

"I still don't know if I'm okay with you sending in Misa like this," I told him. Whack-a-mole with those health bars. "She's been feeling kind of out of it lately, and she's got, this weird thing going on... I think she might have a 'thing' for Naomi." 

"Are you worried she'll leave you?"

"No, I mean, you've seen how she looks at me. But I am worried she's trying to impress Naomi while she sorts her feelings out." If there was any danger of Misa turning against me, she could just get her memories back. I did wonder what the sex would be like if they ever did it. While Misa was squeaking 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' was Naomi stammering 'Uh! Ummm! Errr!'? That would be hilarious.

"Unfortunately for us, we have to deal with Miss Amane's irregularities for the time being," he said. "Nobody else is in such a position to infiltrate the workings of the Yotsuba Prosperity Council and get close to their Kira." He took a bite out of his apple and sprayed a couple globs at the screen. "Your bear died."

"Yeah, the bear died, because the bear decided to keep standing in the poison debuff," I snarked. This was a wipe. Everyone just die where you can be resurrected easily. "And after Misa's interview she tells them she's the Second Kira, and then the Yotsuba Kira contacts her, we know who he is. But that's just too dangerous. If Kira-Y can tell she isn't the real thing, her name and face are all over magazines and TV."

"You have a problem with that. You believe I am exploiting a girl's foolhardiness and naivete without regard to her well-being?"

"It doesn't make sense! You said it yourself, she's the..." Arch one eye, look off to the side while 'thinking' hard enough to come to a revelation... five seconds ought to do it... "You don't think Kira can kill her, do you? In fact, you know that Kira-Y will be able to tell she's fake, and you're counting on that."

"Once again, correct. You amaze me, Light." He looked down at the desk for his apple, only to find it gone. It damn well better have rolled onto the floor. I agreed to double the apple supply around here in exchange for Ryuk's help over the radio, but he still isn't allowed to take any that are being actively attended to. "How did you arrive at that conclusion?" Ryuzaki asked while he found his apple by my foot. He tossed it into the wastebasket, and it was not going to be there when the trash got taken out. 

"Well, I guessed based on what you were doing. But when I think about it, it makes sense. If Naomi Misora and Svyatoslav can't get hit by Kira, it's not impossible she can't either. Didn't she try and kill herself in captivity, maybe that was Kira's failed attempt?" Oh, also, I know because I have firsthand knowledge. And she isn't Kira-proof so much as she's wearing a Kira-proof vest.

"She couldn't kill herself by biting her lip," Ryuzaki grumbled. "She could get blood everywhere and create a biohazard as well as a huge mess, which is why she was stopped. And in any case, Kira would not need to kill her by suicide, as we would expect he would know she was kidnapped and kill her by heart attack before she could reveal any information. The same reason secret agents carry cyanide capsules." He leaned on my desk and smiled at me, staring into me with those big sunken eyes. "Don't be shy, there's nobody else here. You know the reason I think she's Kira-proof."

Big, deep, regretful sigh. Oh lawd, oh lawd, how could noble Light Yagami be about to say this? "Because it took her too long to lose her memories of being Kira, and if you had a mind to actively torture her, go in there with a jeweler's blowtorch, you would have Kira's name, address, birthday, and license plates in five minutes. It makes no sense for Kira to leave her alive that long unless that was his only option."

"That's exactly what I thought, only with a cigar cutter."

"And what Misa's going in there to do isn't get contacted by Kira-Y. Since Y will know she isn't Kira, and Y can't kill her, Y will stay away from her. You are going to have her say something that will make everyone except for the one who knows she's not Kira contact her, and then you'll know which one is our killer."

"Precisely." He took a little bow. "Kudos for figuring it out. You're almost back on your game."

I was obvious why his interest was renewed. But it couldn't last. He got agitated, jingling our handcuff chain. Bored. I handed him my phone and asked to look up what order to kill the Fathom-Lords. He sat down, back to the wall, and started to 'help me'. Barely even checking my screen now.

//To [Remryuk]: Thank you for waiting. 

[Remryuk] whispered you: wwwwwdddadaasassasdhlo

[Remryuk] whispered you: Hello, Kira.//

Hmm. 

//REMRYUK - Level 14 Undead Warlock - Silverpine Forest: The Sepulcher  
[Paragons of Virtues]: Squire  
1 Player Total.//

Okay then, Rem.

//To [Remryuk]: I see you had a fruitful meeting. Nice touch with having Rem sit on the table.

[Remryuk] whispered you: I only want to live up to the legacy of the name you started. 

To [Remryuk]: No time to mince words. In the next few days you will hear word of Misa Amane being connected to the Kira investigation. She will ask to meet with you, and the group will accept. Misa is very important to Rem and myself, and we will be very put out if harm were to befall her.

[Remryuk] whispered you: I take it that being put out in this context means you will kill us.

To [Remryuk]: Yes.

To [Remryuk]: Misa works

[Remryuk] whispered you: ??

To [Remryuk]: for L 

To [Remryuk]: Because she's unaware of her connection to us. She will pose as the second Kira and present you with the opportunity to give her the picture of someone you want dead, for her to kill. Send her the picture of the person you argued for at tonight's meeting, even though you know she cannot do what she promises. 

[Biizardgm] whispered you: [Game Master] Hello blizzard game systems scan to your game account for potenital safety hazards, please visit https://quickbiz.co.jp/account to re-enter billing information or we will suspend your account

To [Remryuk]: Is there another member of the Yotsuba Prosperity Council you wish to see punished?

Biizardgm has been reported for spam.

[Remryuk] whispered you: Several.

To [Remryuk]: Narrow it down to one. Convince that person and only that person that replying to the message is walking into a police sting. 

To [Remryuk]: Found disciples yet?//

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

"Safe. Uh, nnnn, danger!" It was dangerous. Light was right, these people were guaranteed to have some yakuza ties. I had followed her all the way to her apartment, because there she couldn't just keep moving to avoid answering me. Everything was covered in little tchotchkes and knick-knacks with skeletons and other grim things on them. The unrolled Offspring and NOFX posters in the corner looked very out of place.

"It's dangerous but it's my job!" she said back to me. "I'm an investigator, not a tag along! I can... I can do it! I want to be useful!"

"Nnnngh!" I grabbed onto my face and massaged my temples. Took a few fruitless steps in circles, and rather than knock over a Mexican sugar skull, I sat down on her loveseat. How could I tell her this wasn't about her feelings, it was about expertise? "...Useful!"

"I am useful? No I'm not, I make you follow me all the time instead of doing other stuff, that means I'm like negative one agent. I have to do something that matters!" She sat down next to me.

"Laser. Laser, uh, and matter." She was part of the team that did an emergency heist of the Yotsuba building, she was on laser duty! She was elated after that!

"That... that part... it doesn't count!" she stumbled through her words.

"Talk!" I pointed to myself. She read my notes for me, and she interrupted when I couldn't get a word in.

"That doesn't count either! That's, that's something that should have never happened to you!"

//WHAT ABOUT: I am asking a question about how our current subject relates to something else!// This one had me on it, comparing two picture frames. "Light?"

"This... this isn't about Light. No, really, it isn't!" she exclaimed. "Light isn't going to be there! I can do it because, because you're going to be there!"

Long pause. //YOUR PREFERENCE: I am asking how you would prefer for this thing to be!// "Happen?"

"I want Kira to be found, and..." She winced stray tears from her eyes. "I don't know. I feel really weird, okay? I don't... You respect me, Naomi. I look up to you, you're strong and brave and cool," I was none of those things, "but you don't look down on me. You respect me. You think I can do stuff, like, for real. And you care about how I feel." The tears were coming more freely now. "So many people want me, or get obsessed with me, because I try real hard at my job, but it's something in their heads. They want a toy. You think I'm a person who deserves better." She sniffed and dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. "I don't think Light even respects me. I don't... I don't know. He acts so loving but he says things, he says things like 'you're beautiful no matter what you wear'. Like I don't puts lots of work into being beautiful, like he didn't even notice?"

Why would you say that to a professional model? Also, when had Light ever been loving? He was too detached, too much of a wet blanket for any giant emotional displays.

"So I just... I wanna be useful, right? I'm a useless manufactured starlet with no artistic merit. And you're this cool agent detective who didn't even let getting killed stop her. So maybe if I earn your respect I... I'll be worth something." Her eyes were getting red. "Pretty crazy, huh?"

It was. I did respect Misa. I was looking up to her. She sprung back, while I wallowed in pity and withered. "Respect... uh." I pulled out my pen and pad. I wrote my note. She watched me write it, and she held it up, and she read it out loud for me, as a complete and coherent paragraph. //I RESPECT YOU. YOU JUMPED AT ACTION WHILE I DOUBTED MYSELF. YOU HAVE CONVICTION AND MOTIVATION.//

She folded the note, and she nodded. Waited so there would be a clear delineation of time between her words and mine. "So if you like that I jump into things, why can't I go on this assignment?"

And I didn't need to write it. We both knew it. Because I was worried about her. I was afraid of her getting hurt. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to protect her. And slowly, real slowly, she put her arm around me. Waiting at every stage for me to say no. To wave her off. To indicate I cared about her but not in that way.

I didn't.

"I think it's okay..." she whispered. She slid herself into my lap. And I held her in it, she was looking up at my face. "I'm not sure what I feel... I care about you a lot too. I don't want you to be unhappy. I don't want you to live in a world that's awful to you."

I clutched her close. Her crimson lipstick had already started rubbing off. Little streaks ran through her eyeshadow from her tears. She was so beautiful. My breath was quickening. I'd kissed a few girls in middle school, that was normal in Japan, I mostly did it because I felt like I should have. I had experimented in college, everyone did, but I thought the experiment's result was a conclusive "no". But a pretty girl was holding me, and now she was kissing my neck, and she was telling me how important I was. Maybe I performed the experiment wrong. Maybe I was just so desperately lonely now. Maybe I was just Misa's experiment. 

"Okay," I soothed her. "Okay." I saw her as more than a useless manufactured starlet. She made me feel like more than a brain-damaged cripple. She ran her hand up my scars again. Reverently. Like her fingers walked sacred ground. She bent over, and she kissed me. Right on the inside of the elbow. A quick peck on the ridge of my scar. I saw her shudder. My skin didn't feel anything special, but my heart did. 

"I... don't have any idea how to kiss girls..." she stammered. "But it's all going to be all right." She put her face up to mine, and she hugged me. "Being with you, I know that everything is going to be okay."

I felt so happy. I felt so light. It was wonderful, and I should have known, I should have known it wasn't right. Nothing could be this good. Because it was then that I realized some terrible things.

That I was in love with Misa Amane. 

That Misa Amane was in love with me.

And that Misa Amane was, without a doubt, the second Kira.

### 
    
    
    * R U L E S *

**61**. Even if a new victim's name, cause of death, or situation of death is written on top of the originally written name, cause of death or situation of death, there will be no effect on the original victim's death. The same thing will also apply to erasing what was written with a pencil, or whitening out what was written with a pen, in attempt to rewrite it.

 **ADDENDUM: A-61b**. New names, causes, or situations written on top of originally written names, causes, or situations, without erasing the previous text, are illegible text that does not create a valid entry.

 **ADDENDUM: A-61c**. If a previous entry is erased by white-out, and a new entry is written in the same area, the text will be written on the white-out and not on the Death Note. No valid entry will be created. White-out should not be used with the Death Note as a general rule.

 **X-4a**. If two humans share the same name, and the user of the Death Note envisions the faces of both of those humans in turn while writing that name, the user creates an invalid entry and neither human will die.

 **X-4b**. If two humans share the same name and have faces so similar that the user of the Death Note cannot distinguish them (and as such, when they envision a face, cannot be certain if they envision one or the other), that user will not be able to use the Death Note to kill either one of them until one of their faces changes enough to differentiate them. Because lifespan display is not always accurate, seeing different lifespans with the Shinigami Eyes cannot differentiate faces.

 **X-4c**. If two humans known to the user have indistinguishable faces and one human's name is contained within the other's (such as with a "Tarou Yamada" and "Tarou Yamadaki"), the second cannot be killed by the Death Note until the first dies, or their faces become dissimilar.


	5. Slaughterhouse

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

"Honey! I'm home!" I called out to the house as I chucked my keys onto the counter. "Boy, work was really murder today!" It wasn't. I didn't murder anyone. I just took credit for it. The blood on my clothes was mine. 

"Naomi, sweetie! Come here, give me a kiss!" Raye said as he came out from the kitchen to meet me. He had on the flack jacket of a Hostage Rescue Team member. He kissed me on both cheeks, and then I grabbed him by the neck, swung him down, and shoved my tongue down his throat. He grabbed on to me, and we moaned into each other's mouths as we made out. The zippers and spikes on my leather jacket were clinking and rattling as we rocked each other's bodies. 

And then he stood, wiped my lipstick off his mouth, smacked his lips. "Mmmmm. Mmm. Who's she?" he asked, pointing over to Misa. 

Misa had been waiting quite patiently with her hands folded at her waist. When Raye indicated her, she bowed deeply, and said "Konnichiwa!"

"I wanted you to meet her, Raye!" I said, and I held out an arm to each of them. "This is Misa Amane. She's a famous model, AND, she's a serial killer! We're an item!"

"You're getting married?" Was that what I said? He looked hurt, and the spear in his chest didn't help. "I thought I was everything you wanted... I thought you would be with me forever!" He pointed to the kitchen, where I was waiting, barefoot and pregnant, holding a roast that had just come out of the oven. "What happened to her? She was who you were going to be, wasn't it?"

"I was..." I said defensively, backing away like he was a coiled snake. "...But you died. I can't be a housewife to a dead man. I'm, I'm someone different now. I had serious brain damage. Maybe I like girls now."

Misa passed me a note. She couldn't speak on her own, but she wrote in Japanese, and I had to tell myself I didn't read Japanese so I could act like I was an American.

"What about our Naomi?" asked two men in unison -- Kitamura Koreyoshi and Walter Sorenson, though I had never seen the latter. Kitamura had ten bullet anti-holes in his chest. They pointed out onto the command floor where Naomi Misora, FBI Agent was hard at work cracking a case. "You thought you were going to be her forever too. We just wanted her back, that's all!"

"I wanted to start a family!" Why was everyone attacking me? "That's normal for women of my age!"

"You wanted to quit the first time you had a disciplinary procedure," Sorenson said. His mouth didn't move. He didn't have one.

"And that's why I swept in to tell you I could take away all the problems you made for yourself and make everything better," said Raye, clapping me on the shoulder reassuringly. Misa was trying to tell me something. She couldn't. I could tell from her eyes it was important, but I wasn't a good interpreter. "And that's what you needed at that part of your life: an easy out!"

"You told yourself you were going to get revenge on me," said Kitamura, "and look how that turned out! You couldn't seal the deal there either."

Ryuzaki was perched in the chair behind me. "I was considering making you the next L. You're tempramental, moody, unreliable, and deal poorly with frustration. You also solve cases on occasion."

"Shut up! Just shut up, okay!" My lips and tongue were numb and motionless, but my voice came out of Misa's mouth, so it sounded weird, like hearing a tape of your own voice. "I got through physical therapy! That was hard! I didn't quit!"

"I had to dangle a license to kill in front of your face to get you to crawl out of bed, and it still took you months to even try to use it," said Agent Graves. He was just a silhouette, holding a briefcase, all of him black but the white dress shirt under his suit coat and his amber sunglasses. When did I see him in sunglasses? The shadow cast behind him was a tableau of revenge and murder and injustice. "Now you just mope around L's office and sponge off his trust fund."

"It's okay, Naomi," Raye said in his perfectly charitable voice. "I know you still love me. I know you still honor our commitment. We're better off this way, right?" That's him, finding a silver lining. "I'm dead, so I can't say anything to piss you off or make you give up. You probably wouldn't have made it far enough in the engagement to leave me at the altar."

"Don't listen to them, Naomi!" Misa implored me. "They're just saying what you hate about yourself, not what's true! If you need me to help you communicate, I can help you keep going too!" She hugged me and buried her face in my chest. Her touch was so reassuring. It was just what I needed. "And there's nothing wrong with wanting a man to take away all the problems you made and tell you what to do! That's what I did!"

"What's up, people!" Light Yagami said as he threw open the front door and slid inside. The laugh track lasted at least five seconds. "Whooooooooooa, what's going on in here? You didn't say you were stealing my girl, Naomi!" He winked to the camera.

All color drained from the room as I shoved Misa behind me and whipped out my gun. I leveled it at his head. And my hand shook.

"What's the matter, Naomi? Figure that since Misa is Kira I must be too?" he asked with a deranged glint. "Well Misa doesn't think so, does she? And Ryuzaki doesn't think so. He's much smarter than you. Maybe I'm innocent. Maybe I used to be Kira just like her, and Kira left me just like her. What are you going to do about it? Even if you thought you had something, you couldn't act on it. Don't you know powerlessness is the only rule of this world? All you can do is let L think for you. You know how much you'll screw it up if you try. You're a fraud. You tricked everyone into thinking you were a genius because a dumbfuck triple-murderer decided to try and impress you by jerking off in your face. What can you actually do?" Blood was oozing from his eyes. His skin was marked with arcane symbols in thick, livid red scars. I lowered my gun. He was right. I couldn't kill the guilty, how could I kill the innocent? How could I find out, when I was a useless, crippled fake? How could I do anything?

"C'mere, Misa!" I shouted. "I'm so damn tired and so damn lonely, I don't even care about the blood on your hands!" She squealed and jumped on me, knocking me to the floor--

I fell out of bed. A nightmare. Of course it was. It made sense when I was in it, and I woke up, and realized it was nonsense. Misa hadn't been awoken by the noise I made on impact, but her sleep didn't seem peaceful. She grimaced, disturbed by what she saw in her dreams. Her room, filled with mementos mori, was creepier in the dark. The scythe-wielding skeletons around me didn't exactly loom, but they outnumbered me if things went south. The clock said it was 4:15 AM.

I promised to Misa I would stay in her bed all night. So I stayed. I laid back down, I gently picked up her hand, and I put it on my chest. Just touching the thick scar between my breasts. She wasn't totally tranquilized by it, but she did seem calmer. Somewhat more peaceful. I watched her sleep for a while. Then I fell asleep myself.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

"Hello, Santoro Zansai," the man says as he scribbles into his notebook. //SANTORO ZANSAI. STROKE. SEPTEMBER 9, 2007 3:23 AM. AWAKENED IN SUDDEN PANIC, HE ATTEMPTS TO CALL EMERGENCY SERVICES BUT IS UNABLE TO. HE PERISHES AFTER AN HOUR AND A HALF OF CONFUSION AND FEAR AS HIS OXYGEN-STARVED BRAIN DISTORTS HIS THOUGHTS AND PERCEPTIONS.// He flips the notebook closed. "Goodbye, Santoro Zansai."

"Ugh, people like him are just the worst, aren't they?" his wife asks. They are seated at the dinner table. "Holding up everyone's lives, stopping everyone's business, just so they can feel important about themselves." She hands her husband a reheated pork bun, and then offers one to Rem. Rem declines. "You can't get him to take out any of his odious friends, can you?"

"No. Only one person per entry. I have told you this," Rem mumbles. She was told to assist her new charge in using the Note's rules, and reminding him of them. So that is what she does.

"Well, he'll learn his lesson, at least," the man says with chipper finality as he slides the notebook back into its protective casing. "If only that was enough to teach all of them. But hey, that's what Kira is about, right?"

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I * 

Aiber would now be serving as Misa's acting coach for her performance at the Yotsuba Prosperity Council. If this investigation went on much longer, the entire task force would probably turn into her talent agency somehow. He and Misa were in high-back chairs in what looked like a living room, whose purpose in L Plaza I couldn't begin to guess. I stood behind her, leaning on her chair for support.

"All right." Aiber hid his face behind his steepled hands. "What are you doing here, Misa?"

"I'm here so you can be my acting coach," she said like she was unsure if this was a trick question. "I need to go undercover to help the investigation."

"And? Who is the character I will be coaching you to perform?"

"Uh... Basically myself as of April." No, Misa. Not that. In April, you were Kira. You don't know what you were like then. In March, maybe you were just a zealot. Unless you weren't, and you just waited to use your powers. "I had, uh, much, much less nuanced beliefs about Kira, and also hadn't joined L's investigation to catch him. I want to meet Kira and help him, only, not in a way that maks him accountable."

"Oh? That seems like a very easy role for you to get into. You know way more about it than anyone else in the world," Aiber said. "Why do I have to waste my time coaching you?"

"Because... if I screw up, they're going to try and kill us," Misa said in 'why do I have to say this' disbelief. "Then the entire investigation is derailed and the fake Kira goes into hiding and maybe he makes MORE fake Kiras and eventually everyone in the world has a heart attack and--"

"Misa? Calm down," he told her. "You understand that you have to take this seriously, that's good. But it's not the end of the world. You have a bodyguard, you have cover from Watari with the Grizzly. You're safe. If you screw this up, you are going to waste a lot of time and money, just like if you extend shooting for another day by screwing up a take. But the movie will still come out. You understand me? It's hard to act natural if you think the world is at stake."

Misa inhaled through her nose and nodded. "Right. Don't oversell it. Only the normal amount of pressure here." I didn't know how much of what Aiber said was the truth -- it really depended on how many angles they would come at me from, if I could take out everyone and keep Misa safe on my own -- but it honestly was comforting for me too. We had geniuses around. There was a margin for error. If Misa and I jumped the rails and screwed up, that wasn't the end of the world.

"Now the good news is," he said, "I'm actually going to tell you that you are a better actress than people think. I've seen your work. Your primary problem? You care too much about what the director thinks." 

"Hey, hang on, that's what I'm supposed to do!" she protested. "That's my job! The director is, you know, they're the one responsible for the whole movie! Anyone who went to film school can tell you that!"

"Okay, for one, you get lousy scripts, and the director is okay with the script, so what do they know?" Aiber said, counting off on his fingers. "Two, I can tell when you're ad libbing. But you're asking yourself 'what does the director want?' When you're doing that, you're not asking yourself 'what does my character think?' You need to know who your character is, you use the script as a guideline, but you do what YOUR CHARACTER would do. Your character doesn't have a director. They just have a personality and mental state."

"Soooo..." Misa asked, "That means I'm... not going to have a script."

"If I give you a script to read when they question you in a boardroom, and they interrogate you on a metal chair with a spotlight in your face, or they take you to a ski resort to hobnob with champagne, you're not going to sound right at all. You've gotta just know your story backwards and forwards."

"All right, all right!" she said with her hands out. "I'm an actress, I know how to improv, off script is fine!" She must have figured it would be like a press conference, where the whole thing was scripted and pointless. "I was just hoping it would be like a press conference, where everyone knows every question ahead of time so they'd be better off just handing everyone the script so they can go home." Ha!

"And don't think you're off the hook," he said to me. Me? "I saw how mad you got at her saying it was herself from April? Just because you can't talk -- and you shouldn't, not one word, you sound like an idiot and I don't care if it makes me insensitive -- doesn't mean you aren't painting your emotions all over your face. They're going to watch your face. You need to tell the same story that is coming out of her mouth." Well, I didn't exactly, but close enough to it; he was right. "And don't go mugging on me. You are a stone cold badass bodyguard. Aloof indifference is a valid response to most things. Don't be all, bleagh! Awwww!" He pantomimed the masks of comedy and tragedy. 

Misa looked up at me to make sure I was getting it. The Kuleshov effect. I nodded, and her face... it didn't light up, but it was brighter. 

"Okay. Here's our first question for April Misa. where were you between April and August?" Aiber held his fingertips together.

She held her hand over her brow and swiped downward. In character now. "I was in a car accident! I would have died if my bodyguard hadn't pulled me away from the wreckage."

He looked at us in silence. Then he snapped. "Yo. Shoko. This is one of the times aloofness isn't a valid option. You saved your charge's life. How does that make you feel?" I squinted at him, rolled my eyes, and I put my hand to my brow and swiped it down just like Misa had. "Oh, I'm sorry, forgive me! Shoko Maki, has just appeared in this room! Just, this very moment now, coalescing out of the ether! Only to answer, how does saving your charge's life make you feel?

I mean... when he put it that way. I didn't have authetic feelings about an imaginary car crash. But I did have some about saving her life. Hope tinged with regret. Pride with sorrow. There was no way all of that would be conveyed even if I had been trying to, but the Kuleshov effect was an actress's best friend. 

There was a knock on the door, and then without nearly enough time to open it, Ryuzaki cracked it open. His handcuffs were clinking, and behind him, Light Yagami had a bag of bagels. I knew now in the bottom of my soul that Misa had been the second Kira. And the implications were obvious. I could have blown his brains all over the room right there. Nobody else was armed. It would take a second to draw and pull the trigger. I would never make it out alive even if there weren't some kind of laser turrets in the ceiling, and the investigation would be derailed, but he'd be dead. 

But he might be an innocent kid. Might have lost his memory like Misa when the parasite found a new host.

And if I ventilated his skull, I'd never know if he was or not. And I'd never know how he did it. And I'd never know how to stop it from happening.

And I'd think I was smarter than Ryuzaki and knew more about what was going on than him.

And I'd have to be strong enough to pull the trigger. And I'd have to deserve vengeance and closure.

And Misa would be utterly destroyed. She had to believe in him. She had to know he was a good person. And I needed her. God, I needed her. I needed her to believe in me. I needed to feel her touch my scars.

So I had no choice. I did the only thing I could for now. I had to keep quiet and stick to the plan. I'd be good at that. I held up my shooting hand and I said "Bagel." I knew I looked conflicted. There was just so much to be conflicted and powerless about.

"No talking!" Aiber snapped. "Shoko Maki doesn't talk!" I snagged the blueberry bagel Light threw to me at the same moment Aiber flicked a rubber band into my face. Ow.

"We were coming in to check on how the coaching was going," Ryuzaki said in complete deadpan. "It appears to be going well."

"Ryuzaki, I met you in the lobby. I've been with them for like ten minutes." Aiber rolled his eyes. "Okay! You were in a car crash, Misa. What happened after that?" Light Yagami was looking at her. He wanted her. She was his girlfriend, of course he did, and that was another problem altogether. 

Misa chewed her lip, staring up at Light. "You know, I... uh, Light, that's... Ow! Quit that!"

Aiber nailed her right in the cheek with a rubber band. He was a damn sniper with those things. "Don't look at Light! Look at me! You don't have a director to please, and you don't have a boyfriend there either! Nobody's approving of anything for you, not even your bodyguard!" Did he not notice how nervous she was, thinking about the secret she hid from him? Or did he not care?

"It's fine, Misa," Light reassured. "Pretend I'm not here. I'm not even paying attention."

"R-right," she stammered. Deep breath. Hand over her face again. "Okay, so you ask where I was after the car crash, and then, I say... I was in the hospital!" she suddenly snapped. "My new manager kept it secret so we weren't swarmed by fans." Light looked for a seat, but there was none close enough to Ryuzaki, who was just standing with his hands next to his pockets by Aiber and looming.

"Oh. That's very sad. What hospital?" Aiber asked. Light kept the asiago cheese bagel to himself. That wasn't evidence he was Kira. I would steal those from Raye.

"Kanto Rosai in Kanagawa," Misa said without missing a beat. Light was just standing there with a bagel in his mouth, like it was his idea to stand within 2 meters of Ryuzaki and not a limitation.

"Oh! Why, that's very interesting, Misa!" Aiber said in an absurdly phony voice. "Here, let me do something!" He held out his thumb and forefinger in the shape of a phone, and tapped iit with his other hand. "Beep boop beep bop bip! Brrrrrring! Brrrrrring!..." He cupped his hand over the 'receiver'. Misa was staring over to Light again. "It's ringing... Hi, Kanto Rosai hospital? I'm doing due diligence about a car crash involving Misa Amane and her bodyguard Shoko Maki. You have no record of one? Of course, that's what I would expect if it was kept secret! But you know Shoko Maki is a person who doesn't exist, and you have a record of someone arriving under that name in January, comatose? Who looks exactly like and has the exact same rare brain injury as our Shoko Maki but had nothing to do with Misa? Wow, that's a coincidence!"

Misa startled, then swiped her hand upward over her face. "You don't have to be a jerk, Aiber. It was the first one I could think of."

"Yagami! Bagel me and tell me what hospital your girlfriend stayed at," Aiber called back.

"Let's see." Light produced a chocolate chip bagel and handed it to Aiber. "Jiyugaoka would be somewhat out of the way, so--"

"Jiyugaoka, got it. You were at Jiyugaoka Hospital," Aiber stated. Light had more to say, some more reasoning to follow, meaning he was overthinking the question. Because he was Kira and he gave calculated answers to everything? Or was that just his way?

No. I was going to go insane. Ryuzaki was more perceptive than I and he'd gained no useful information from this kind of thing. He was confident that Light wasn't Kira. Our job right now was to go to Yotsuba and stage our deception and see who knew what they shouldn't. We were going to do that. And I would trust Ryuzaki's judgment until then.

But we'd still want to avoid Light. For... rather obvious reasons. I can't imagine he'd be okay with what Misa and I were doing.

Aiber walked her through her story, jabbed at its holes, and flung rubber bands at anyone who broke character or interrupted. He was really enjoying being able to do that. Eventually, Misa had an idea. "Hey, what if I just... stay in character the whole time? Like I talk to all of you like I'm April Misa. But, like, I'd have to, uh, I'd have to stay away from Light and Ryuzaki, because, because you guys are in charge of stopping Kira and it's hard to go around that. Aaaaaand I'd pretend this is not the investigation HQ, of course."

"Oh, yeah," Aiber said. "Method acting. Jim Carrey did that when he played Andy Kaufman in 'Man On The Moon'." 

"DAMN it!" Misa snapped. "I thought method acting was just asking about your motivation all the time! Man, everyone already had my good ideas!" Aiber snapped a rubber band at her. "Ow!"

Aiber rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Your character is close to you, so it's not normally necessary to go to great lengths to stay in character. But since you have a problem acting out things you think are immoral, it will probably help. Go around telling the rest of the crew how great Kira is and how much you want to meet him, and react to whatever they do. Dodge the investigation leads who are trying to stop him."

"Oh, right." She squirmed in her seat a little. "I can't do that, then. Naomi is... had a very bad experience with Kira. It wouldn't be fair to make her follow me around and listen to me say he's great when he did such awful things to her... Ow! Stop flicking those at me!"

"Naomi Misora?" Aiber asked sarcastically. "Who's that? You never met anyone by that name. Naomi Misora is dead. All I see is Shoko Maki. Your loyal, faithful bodyguard, who is clearly okay with your views on Kira because she still works for you." He looked up at me and readied another rubber band. "And who needs to be able to practice hearing praise for Kira without getting visibly upset by it. Right?"

Misa looked up to me for approval. Slowly, tongue jammed into my teeth, I nodded. Aiber was right. And I knew that if Misa was professional enough to do this, I could be too. Misa nodded back, slid her hand down over her face again. "Of course. Shoko knows how important Kira is to me."

Great. That was all I had to do until the meeting. Silently watch Misa. Watch her pretend she was still in love with Kira. And pretend I didn't know that she really was Kira.

### 
    
    
    * * * * * 

Sakura TV, the station which originally aired the tapes from what Ryuzaki would term 'the second Kira', noticed the spike in ratings it received from broadcasting Kira's words, and now was airing a limited test run of a talk show called 'Kira Knowledge', title subject to change. At Week 1, it was a round-table discussion of Kira and the implications of his powers and the of investigation. Week 2 was a screaming match. By Week 3 and onward, calls and guests were being pre-screened and the discussion had turned into a praise hour. Maybe fitting for one who styled himself God of the New World.

The man and his wife watch the program every week, of course. Rem has no other option but to watch it too. They don't watch it for praise.

"Whatever happened to that second Kira, huh?" asks the man over the phone. The host nods to show he's listening. "He had the right idea, but not far enough. People should be put to death for speaking out against Kira, even if it's not in public! Kira's perfect world has no place for people who doubt him!" 

Rem turns up her lip in revulsion. "Humans are disgusting," she mutters.

"Ugh, aren't they?" the woman says. "These people are scum. Look at them. Half of them are bootlicking in terror, and the other half think Kira's going to just kill everyone who ever hurt their feelings. Give them the slightest chance to hurt people and get away with it, even vicariously? They take it. Everything is about them." She absentmindedly rubs her pregnant stomach. "I'd feel terrible about bringing a child into this world if we weren't doing something about it."

The caller is continuing. "...because nobody should doubt me, I'm Kira! I'm Kira and I'm ushering in a perfect new order! Worship me, and--"

"All right, all right, that's enough," the host says while making the 'cut call' motion over his neck. The show got one or two of those a week. "Let's cut to commercial, okay?" The commercials for Kira Knowledge were all ads for other programs on Sakura TV -- despite the massive ratings, no company was yet willing to advertise on it.

"Hmm," the woman muses. "Obviously you couldn't just call in and say 'I am Kira', they get those all the time." She put her hand to her chin in thought. "Rem, do you think it would work if he wrote an entry for the host that said, something like, 'answers a caller who claims to want to talk about Kira's impact on international finance, hears the caller order him to die of a heart attack, and then coincidentally dies of a heart attack'? Then Kira's on the air, demonstrating power, to an audience of Kira fanatics ready to hear his words. Kira gets to summon up an army like he wants, if he wants it during the right time slot."

"I... am not sure." Rem said. "I don't know how a television program works. Everyone must behave in a plausibly normal manner."

"Oh, there's just someone screening the calls, that's all!" says the man. "They'd definitely let me on the air, that's their job. That's very clever, honey!" He hops to his feet and kisses his wife on the top of the head. "I'm going to go write that all down without the name and time, in case I forget. Let me know if I miss anything interesting, okay?"

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I * 

Shoko Maki, Taro Matsui, and April Misa were going out to dinner after a long, hard day of exterior shots and running in high-heeled boots. Since I wasn't going to say anything, I got to refer to her as April Misa all I wanted. I forfeited all my knowledge of the best local ramen stands long ago, but any ramen stand is the best when you've been on your feet all day pretending to be someone you used to be, pretending to be someone they're not. So we found a little cart by the road, and Misa ordered. Taro ordered. And Misa ordered for me: "Miso ramen with pork cutlet and five times as much garlic as you think it needs." It felt good. It wasn't the first ramen cart we'd been to this week, but this time, I was able to get my order conveyed with no difficulty, no inarticulate fumbling. Almost like a person could. We got our food, we picked up our bags, and we got a nice little park bench. To sit, three show biz people with no ulterior motive, and watch Yokohama walk by us at dusk.

"All right," Misa said after a bit. "I'm just gonna say it. I think we need to ask for some rewrites. I don't think the movie is shaping up."

"Mmmm?" Taro said around a mouthful of noodles. "Wha whra--" slrrrrrp! "--What's wrong?"

"Well my character Kasumi is supposed to be crazy in love for Shinchiro, right? And I get that! And she does anything she can for his sake, even if it means turning against the Family! But then..." Misa looked around, but there were no reporters lurking around waiting for spoilers. There was a rumor she was bad luck to follow around. After I kicked that one guy. "But then she just kills herself for him? Why? I don't get it."

"Oh, well, Misa," Taro said, "It's the ultimate sacrifice, right? Sometimes, you love someone so much that you want them to be happy even if it can't be with you. And you give up your own relationship with them, to make sure they are safe. So when she realizes they'd never stop running if they were together, she walks into the battle she knows she can't win, she's really winning his freedom. And she wants that more than her life."

"Okay, but, like..." Misa groped in the darkness for the words. "...How does killing herself actually win his freedom? She never dealt with the reason she came for him in the first place, he still saw the hit go down, so he's still a loose end. The Chairwoman still wants him dead, she's still gonna be after him, that's why she sends people for a battle. He still has to escape, only now he needs to do that with one flower shop owner instead of a flower shop owner plus a badass assassin. And he doesn't! He comes back to the fountain so he can kiss Kasumi's angel!" She spooled up a giant wad of noodles and crammed it into her mouth. "Tha ja buh tha cra ouha me."

"Huh." Taro wondered. "That's... That's a good point. That's a pretty big plothole."

I hadn't noticed it because I hadn't been reading the script and had no idea what scenes were in what order. With nothing to add, I slurped my own noodles. Delicious, garlicky noodles. Little flakes of garlic clove sticking out of the gaps in the cooked pork.

"Mmph! Mmm," Misa grunted as she swallowed. "It's like they're saying being in love makes people stupid! Like Kasumi would jump off a bridge or something. 'Oh, Shinchiro, I'm jumping off this bridge for yooooooouuuuuu,' splat!"

"Mmh. Mm. 'Omen'?"

"Yeah, that's a movie, right?" Taro asked. "With like the little devil kid." He wasn't in America last year, he didn't see the ad with the lady jumping off the building every commercial break, he must have picked it up through osmosis.

"Damn it!" Misa muttered. "Every time with this! Whatever, whatever. The point is, I don't want my name attached to something that denigrates true love, right?" And then she looked up at me, and she held my hand in hers. "It's... bad for my brand. Right?"

I shook my head yes, finished swallowing, and then slowly nodded. She squeezed my hand harder. 

"Okay, first thing tomorrow, talk about reshoots." I stared off into the distance and so did she. Holding hands. The air just starting to get cold. Two people, together, watching the world go past them. Sometimes that was enough. Maybe we could hold hands and slurp noodles forever and tomorrow just wouldn't happen and nothing would change and nothing would be scary.

"Ah, I forgot something, I was gonna show you!" Or, maybe not. Misa gestured for Taro's valise and he cracked it open. "Since this shopping mall thing isn't going through Sunshine, I whipped up my own promotional material at the print shop. Let me know what you think."

Carefully, I slid my soup to the side before reviewing. A collection of headshots, glamour shots, testimonials, reviews, and quotes summarizing and extoling the career of Misa Amane, Model. She did not slip in her vampire schoolgirl, which must have taken some restraint. The Yotsuba meeting wasn't really about having a spokesmodel for the shopping mall, but April Misa had to pretend. Besides, the portfolio let us include the most important piece of the plan: 

The flyer, rimmed with flower designs and decorated with chibi cartoons of all of us, listing our contact information. The numbers for the special phones given out for //MISA AMANE, STARLET AND HEARTTHROB//, //TARO MATSUI, GENERAL MANAGER//, //SHOKO MAKI, SECURITY (TEXT MESSAGE ONLY)//, and the fictional //GEORGE ADAIR, INTERNATIONAL LICENSING//. Without this there was no plan: we had to see who would and wouldn't call Misa's number.

It all looked good. I gave her the thumbs up. She was getting ready any way she could, and that was important.

### 
    
    
    * * * * * 

Santoro Zansai wakes up in the middle of the night, screaming in pain. He has to get out. He has to get to the phone. But he can't. He's been strapped to this gurney by the same fiendish masked men and woman that kidnapped and drugged him. They look like doctors. Bedside manner is not their strong suit. 

"He's up!" the woman cries out in Portuguese. "His EEG is all lit up, he's having a stroke!" 

"About goddamned time!" shouts one of the men back, throwing the light novel he's reading into the face of the third doctor, still on his cot on the floor. As this man washes his hands, the woman holds up a syringe that has already been loaded with the exact dose appropriate to his body weight. He has no idea who these people are or what they are saying. He doesn't know that that syringe full of Alteplase IV r-tPA is more effective the sooner after stroke it is administered, petering out at three hours, when he's been dosed after 20 seconds. He never saw Yoko Yokako's medical PSA urging rapid response, because time lost is brain lost. He just knows he is confused and terrified.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

This was it. A week passed in a nervous haze of not thinking and not wanting to hear Misa praise Kira. The meeting was taking place at the site of the mall itself, right at the edge of the Kanazawa Nature Park, where they were planning on expanding into. One of them must have been able to vet its security better than their meeting places. The fact that it was daytime in a nice part of town spoke well of their intentions. On the other hand, the mall was still under construction, so they had a perfect place to dump bodies. 

Yotsuba's security, looking about as Yakuza as anyone can get while having all their fingertips, ushered me and Misa in to the front doors of the shopping center, while Taro pulled away. He'd be a couple blocks away in case things looked bad. Watari was also a couple of blocks away, but with the gigantic antimateriel rifle he had, he wasn't going to have to get up to help. Misa was already dolled up, but I pulled out the final piece of the puzzle: my badass sunglasses.

We were greeted by all seven of the Yotsuba Prosperity Council, in sharp black suits, smiling dully. And as soon as I stepped in with Misa, there was a problem. "Misa, who is this?" asked Hiraga. Leader-guy. "We didn't think the talent agency would be sending any visitors with you."

"Her? No, no," Misa said, "This is my bodyguard, Shoko Maki. Shoko, wave to everyone."

I did.

"Shoko goes with me everywhere I go. She saved my life, so I'm always in her debt." April Misa was telling the truth about that. So was Regular Misa. It made me feel warm.

"My apologies then," Hiraga said with a bow. "Miss Maki, may we take your jacket?"

I slowly shook my head. Shaking your head slowly with your tongue in your teeth means no. "Actually, Shoko can't talk," Misa said. "Because of the accident, she can understand words, but she can't really form spoken language. She has to write notes for me to read. If that's okay with everyone?"

"Shit, I've heard of that," muttered Daisuke. The rebellious one who thought it was bullshit. "That's the... damn, what is it?" Everyone was looking at him while he snapped his fingers trying to recall. "It's the... a... Aphasia, right?" I pointed back at him, he got it. And I wanted to get going. 

"If you'll follow me, please, I can show you how Kanazawa Shopping Park is shaping up. We've got over thirty retailers lined up, domestic and foreign..." He started going into his spiel, with Eba -- old battleaxe, said L shot Kitamura's dick off -- chiming in with details. I didn't care about any of it. I was scouting the situation. Sunglasses are useful because nobody can see what you are looking at. They also make you look badass. They make you badass BECAUSE nobody can see what you are looking at, and so, you appear not to be concerned with your surroundings. That's why bodyguards wore them. My eyes were flicking left and right and up to see what guards were posted here, but none of them could tell any of that. I appeared to be looking straight ahead, unconcerned with everything. 

This would be a shitty place to have a firefight, the only cover was low glass walls, but security wasn't going to start shit while I was so close to the Prosperity Council. Four of them would be bleeding out on the floor before a firefight really got started. If they had any experience they would know I was packing by how I walked, and if they didn't, they likely didn't have guns themselves. I kept my ears open for the sound of someone stepping up next to a railing, on the upper levels. That's where an attack would come from. I didn't care about Eba and Hiraga's spiel about cross-promotion and the synergy of having Yotsuba brands. Misa didn't either. They just couldn't turn it off. 

A pavilion, a food court, another pavilion, a movie theatre, an indoor park area, children's fun zone, various degrees of completion and preparation. Disco pants and haircuts. Lot of space in this mall. At last they led us to a conference room, with a long oak table. Big enough that all of them could sit on once side, and Misa and I would still be on "the other side". There was no other way out of the room, the walls were cinderblock, but unless they had grenades or gas they'd have a real bad time trying to take us out through the one choke-point while we were behind this thick table as cover. Either they weren't planning on attacking us or they were bad at it.

'Geraldo Coil' was here, of course. He had a pina colada in his hand. None of the storefronts here were operational, there was no place he could have got it.

Misa took a seat in the big corporate chair. The other seven took their places. I opened my overstuffed messenger bag and I handed one portfolio to each of them, before taking my station behind Misa, staring at all of them.

"So!" Eba said with a clasp of her hands. "What do you think?" This was not the purpose of our visit, but clearly she had more emotionally invested in this project than the rest.

"I like it!" Misa chirped. "I would hang out here. I have a couple of ideas though, that I think would make it--"

"That's... We'll wait until the end for those," Hiraga said. "Mr. Coil here helped set us up with you, and we just have a... a few questions about your background."

"We have to be careful about who we associate with our brand, you see," Eba added.

"Of course! And if you don't like all the Gothic motifs, we can turn that down. I'm versatile."

"No, no, nothing like that," said Isamu. Guy who thought a Kira problem wasn't a them problem. "Just some minor background details."

Aiber got out a stack of papers and began. "Misa, how long have you employed miss Maki here?"

"I thought this was my background check?" she asked. "I mean, it depends. The talent agency assigned her to me last... June, I think? But she only showed up for special events and appearances. Then back in March a crazed fan came at me with a knife, so I got really serious about my safety. She said I needed a full-time bodyguard, and, I agreed! And it honestly paid off. So Sunshine Talent Agency hired her for me in June, but I actually employed her personally in March. Right?" I confirmed her story. It was exactly what we'd gone over, and exactly what the records at Sunshine Talent Agency would say. Misa's old manager was going to retire off of the hush money he was being given.

"Good for you, I guess," Aiber continued. "where did you disappear to in April of this year?"

"I was in a car crash!" she said, insulted. "We were driving out to meet a friend and a drunk driver hit us. I would have died if Shoko hadn't saved me, and then I was in the hospital recovering! We kept it quiet because I didn't want fans flooding the hospital. I had enough problems." This was a lie. She was kind of squirming while she said it. She had to practice lying badly, while also lying fluently.

"Oh really?" Aiber asked. "What hospital?" This was indeed what we rehearsed for.

"Jiyugaoka," she said. "Why, does it matter?"

"Misa..." said Daisuke. "Your bodyguard is obviously covered in scars from the crash. Your skin is pristine. Why did you need to stay at the hospital for months?"

"Why thank you, but--" Misa caught herself. "Oh."

"If you were in rehab for a drug problem, we can't have you as a spokesmodel." Daisuke said. "We want families to feel welcome here." There was a zero point zero percent chance that at least two of these people didn't have cocaine on or inside of them right now, but all were nodding gravely. I knew it was pageantry, but it was still nauseating. 

Misa got glum and she looked away. "I wasn't in rehab. There was a car crash. Shoko did save me!" She snapped her eyes back to them to say that. Her conviction was real. She had to channel things she believed were true, to get April Misa to believe the slightly altered story. So she was indeed telling them the truth, I saved her life, just not from a crash. "But I was trapped, not seriously injured. I twisted my ankle and broke my left pinky and ring finger, that's all. She was seriously injured, but they only wanted me overnight. And while she was unconscious, I... I...

"Some guys in masks took me! They blindfolded and drugged me and I woke up in a straitjacket somewhere! At first I thought it was a crazy stalker man, right? But he just kept asking me over and over and over, with this weird scrambled voice if I was Kira and asking me to confess. Saying I killed the Sakura TV newscaster. I wasn't Kira! And, and when Shoko got out of the hospital, she never let up. There were police who were in on it, or who knew something and weren't saying anything, and they refused to investigate my disappearance, and she had to go around them, and, and, she eventually tracked me down to a warehouse, but by the time she got there, everyone but me was gone!" Her voice was laden with fear and panic, so were her eyes. My part of that story hadn't happened, but her fear had. I was so sorry I couldn't help her. That I played along in her imprisonment for as long as I did.

"At any time, did you see the face of your captor?" asked Isamu. 

"No!" she whined. "I was always blindfolded, and he was talking through a microphone in another room that flanged his voice. I think there were other people too, but I'm not sure. Nobody was in the room with me. They knocked me out any time they wanted to move me or do something like change the bag I peed in." She thought about it, and turned her lip up in disgust. "Ugh, I really hope they weren't saving that." Ew. I didn't need to hear that, Misa, and neither did most of Yotsuba judging by the looks of it. "Anyway, Shoko got me out. I didn't go back to work right away because I had lost eight kilos and needed physical therapy to get my strength back. I don't like to talk about it because people won't believe me."

"Hmm." Hiraga mused with his hands steepled over his mouth. "If he actually believed you were the second Kira, then those were actually reasonable precautions. And he certainly had some cause for suspicion, didn't he? If you weren't the second Kira, you certainly were a Kira supporter."

"There's only one Kira," she grumbled, fidgeting in her seat. Only one could be the real thing. Only one could be who she loved. Everyone else was a phony. "And lots of people are Kira supporters. All over. They have a TV show for him and everything. Plenty of people agree with what he's doing."

"They do," Hiraga said. taking the lead for the Kira questions. "But not everyone had to be removed from a New Year's special because she got into a backstage fistfight with a member of Smile Kiss over the justice of Kira's actions. You are more akin to a Kira-worshiper, aren't you?"

"NO!" she barked, and slammed her fist into the armrest. "I'm... First off, it wasn't a fistfight. Shoko would have broken it up if it was. We had a... a vigorous disagreement." That was a nice touch, placing me at the incident but having reason not to intervene. "And second, I don't worship Kira. That means, like, that I rave about anything he does no matter what it is. That I don't think about it. That my devotion is blind. And it's not!" She brushed her hair from her eyes to compose herself. "I love Kira. Kira killed the man who murdered my parents. He protected me. Not even Shoko could have done that!" Her words still hurt, and I couldn't hide it. I looked down at her and felt real sorrow. This was horrible. Horrible that she would feel this way. That she would live in a world that would produce this. "Kira's making a new world where people can be safe. And I love him for that. That doesn't mean I'm just some, like, a blind zealot."

She took a deep centering breath. "But on New Year's, it had just happened, my emotions were very high, everyone was tipsy on champagne. I've learned the importance of... keeping my true views about Kira secret. I haven't said anything political since I came back to show business. The second unit director's very outspoken in hating Kira and all I did was ask him to change some lines back. I'm not going to associate you with any controversial views. I can keep my devotion to myself. I'm a professional." She was. Those lines meant growth for her, I guess. She didn't believe in Kira any more, not like this. That she could say those opinions meant, maybe, she'd overcome them. And that she could talk about keeping her opinions private meant, maybe, that she had learned from how her own stance had changed. She had to have been thinking the same thing as I: on New Year's Day, Kira was forcing me to commit suicide. 

She really was the second Kira. She killed people for speaking out against him. I looked down at her, and I wondered. Was this really growth? Did she really learn not to feel murderous wrath at people who threatened her worldview? Or was it simply that she never needed to, and Kira inside of her did it? Kira's hold didn't know how I should have acted, either. I wanted to believe it was controlling her, that she didn't simply realize she had the power to murder people for hurting her feelings and used it. And I was already looking too forlorn and morose for too long. So that's what I believed.

Yotsuba wasn't suspicious, but, I could tell Misa was getting upset. I passed her a note, which she dutifully read aloud, adding syntax and structure. "//DO YOU NEED TO TAKE A SHORT BREAK?// Actually yes. Is the little girl's room hooked up, yet?"

"Here, I'll show you," Isamu said as he opened the door for us. It was not too far, and nobody followed us, which was good. 

She splashed some lukewarm water on her face, inspected herself in the mirror, smeared off and reapplied bits of lipstick. "I don't know if it's going well," she confided -- still in character. "I can't tell if they like me or not. I -- GACK!" She recoiled away and shivered. "What was that?"

I held her to my side and I looked around, then I looked at her hands and arms. Nothing. "No, it's not... I don't think anything touched me," she said. "It's more like... You know that saying, 'it's like someone just stepped on my grave'? I felt real weird, that's all. I'm good to keep going."

That was what we did.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

In the car on the way back from the fruitfully fruitless meeting, Isamu -- it was Isamu, by the way -- turns to his spectral passenger. "So, how was Misa doing?"

"I don't know," Rem says. "I couldn't observe her for long. She wasn't distressed."

"Well, hey," he says, "She was doing undercover work and not freaking out, that's something. Bodyguard seemed capable. And she has at least two gods of death looking out for her. That's also something. She'll be fiiiiiiine."

Rem stares him down with her ophidian face and a shiver goes up his spine. Death incarnated into misshapen flesh is in his car, scowling at him. "I don't care about Kira's plan. Nor yours. The only reason I cooperate with any of this is the safety of Misa Amane. Do more than hope that she is fine, Isamu, because if any harm befalls her due to her association with your group I will kill you, your wife, and every single one of your colleagues."

"Jesus!" Isamu almost smacks into a parked car. "For God's sake Rem, I was trying to tell you to take it easy, people are watching out for her!" He refocuses on the road, rolls his shoulders to work out the sudden tension he's been given. "Rem, you have got to learn some people skills. Yeesh."

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

The meeting was now over. No hitches. Misa wrote out several potential messages to meet with my approval, I signed off on one, and she then showed it off to Ryuzaki and Light before she sent it off to each member of the Yotsuba Prosperity Council. 

//I'M SORRY TO MAKE YOU WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THAT CHARADE, BUT IT'S OBVIOUS WHY I COULD NOT TALK ABOUT WHY WE REALLY CAME. BUT NOW YOUR INTENTIONS ARE CLEAR TO ME, BASED ON WHAT I HEARD. I AM THE SECOND KIRA, AND ONE OF YOU KNOWS THE ORIGINAL. AND I THINK YOU KNOW WHY I NEED TO FIND HIM, AND KEEP IT SECRET. I NEED TO CONTACT THE ORIGINAL KIRA, JUST AS YOU HAVE.

I DO NOT EXPECT YOU TO ACT WITHOUT PROOF. MY CONTACT INFORMATION IS IN THE PACKET YOU RECIEVED. PURCHASE A BURNER PHONE AND SEND ME THE FACE OF SOMEONE YOU WISH KILLED, OTHER THAN A MEMBER OF YOUR GROUP, TO PROVE MY ABILITIES. WHEN THAT PERSON IS DEAD, WE CAN TALK ABOUT GETTING IN TOUCH WITH KIRA.

I LOOK FORWARD TO WORKING WITH YOU --K2//

The trap was set. All that remained now was to wait a few days and see who messaged Misa. If anyone even did. 

I was having terrible nightmares. Judged and condemned by Raye, by everyone. Misa tricking me to opening my shirt, and carving my organs out. Misa holds me down while Light re-ties the puppet strings around me, and forces me to humiliate and degrade myself before committing suicide. And yet here I was. walking her to her room, while she held a cake, that she intended the two of us to eat together. 

Would I have made it to the wedding? I would never know. The thought that I would be shackled forever to a corpse killed me just as much as the horror of devaluing my love for Raye like that. I was tearing myself apart. And then a little blonde serial killer beckoned me inside, and...

I needed her, Raye. I needed the strength she had. She kept going. She wanted me to keep going. She could go, she could act. She was happy. Maybe the screams in my brain were right, and I did quit when it got hard. And she was there telling me not to. Telling me I kept her safe. Just like you did for me, Raye. I needed her so badly.

"I don't know if you light candles for a job well done party," Misa said, "but, uh, yay! Congratulations on a job well done, Misa and Naomi!" It was a strawberry cheesecake, the kind Ryuzaki scarfed down, she must have done something special to acquire one without Ryuzaki-shaped bite marks. She set it on her little kotatsu table. And she smiled up at me and it was so... pure. She was happy to see me even though she saw me all day. Because I meant she was safe and her world made sense. I took off my gloves, put them in my jacket pockets, hung that on her coat hook. Ryuzaki had her room made with a coat hook. My scarred arms were open for her to see.

The cheesecake had a thick layer of white frosting outside, and a vein of strawberry sauce running through its rich, yellowy mantle of sweet cheese. The slices were all separated by paper, no cutting required, and Misa and I each staked our claims. I got ready to take a bite, but she held her fork out to my face -- I held a piece out to her, too. More romantic this way. With a silent count, we each fed the other a bite. It was... heavenly. Sweet, and rich, and tart, with the perfect texture that provided just the right amount of resistance to the tongue. Real strawberries died to make this cheesecake, and their local bushes were still asking where they went.

"Mmmmph!" Misa moaned in joy. "Mmmmm, that's amazing! No wonder Ryuzaki's always hoarding these!" She looked down at the cake in wide-eyed concern. "Naomi. Naomi, do not let me eat more than two slices of this. Don't let me get fat, Naomi." We both stared at the cake -- ten of the twelve slices remained -- as we got ourselves each another bite and swallowed. "Mmmmmm... Okay I can be a little fat. Three slices fat. Winter's coming up." I nodded at her gravely. I was ready to unhinge my jaw and shove this whole thing in my mouth like a rare, endangered snake that lives only in a patisserie, and then her eating any more slices would be a moot point. 

"Mmmm! Ugh, how does Ryuzaki keep his figure when he eats one of these a day?" she whined. "He never works out, he lounges around all day, mmmmph!, he looks terrible, but it's a 55 kilo terrible."

I shrugged. I had no idea. It just made me think of a story I couldn't... No. I could. Why not? I stood up, and I got the pad and pen from my pockets. And Misa, she just put down her cake. So she wouldn't go faster than me... and then she picked it up and had another bite while I wrote, because it sang to her like the Sirens. It was like each word was elusive, each one was difficult to pick like I was writing a breakup letter to an emotionally unstable boyfriend set off by anything. But she waited. And though I handed her //GAIN I 7 KG USA <= FIND KFC NOT RESERVE//, what she read aloud to the two of us was, //I GAINED 7 KG WHEN I WENT TO AMERICA, BECAUSE I FOUND OUT KFC DIDN'T HAVE RESERVATIONS.// My thoughts. My story. A complete sentence. Read slowly so I could interrupt if she was getting it wrong, but it still felt damn good.

And she added "Wait, you don't need reservations to eat at KFC in America? Oh, I bet that's because they have a bunch more of them over there. It's probably only like a twenty minute wait." I pushed my tongue and slowly shook my head. "Really? That's crazy."

Chomp. Swallow. Mmmmmmmmph. God, this stuff was good. "America sounds pretty cool, you like it a lot there," Misa said, graham cracker crumbs spraying out of her mouth. "Mmm, maybe when this is done, we can go visit. Take everybody. You can show us around."

There was a little problem with that. "Mmph?" I tapped my chest and gestured to my mouth. "Uh... Um." God, the joke was being ruined, what was the word? "Translate?"

Misa laughed like I'd told a risque joke. "We could get a translator! I'm an interpreter, that's different, we can still combine them. Like one of those bucket brigades, only for words." 

'This is Naomi, this is her interpreter, and this is her interpreter's translator.' It was pretty silly, and I giggled. And by now, I was sick of tiny bites. I picked my slice up and shoved it into my mouth, filling up my cheeks. It was so god damn delicious, partly because it was the reward for a job well done, mostly because it must have had so much fat in it. Misa stopped eating and stared at my hamster-cheeked face, struggling with all the cake in my mouth. She blushed a little, pushing her hands into her lap.

"You, uh... You got a little something... on your mouth," she said. I grunted quizzically. "Right... right here." She pointed to the corner of her mouth, and I felt with the tip of my tongue. A stream of strawberry oozed out of the corner of my lips. "It looks like... like you're a vampire or something. And you're a messy eater."

One advantage, I guess, of having to communicate in brain-damaged telegraphs was I could still do it with my mouth full. Because I had gone too far with this. My mouth had overcommitted to this confection and now Congress was calling it a quagmire. //ALL VAMPIRE MESS?//

"//AREN'T ALL VAMPIRES MESSY EATERS?//" she said. "Yeah, they kind of are, aren't they? You would figure that they basically have straws in their mouth that they drink through. But they get blood all over the place. I mean, Aiko did it because she was crazy, that's what I decided, but she wasn't spraying it on the walls of the vampire clubhouse." She tried real hard to not take another bite and talk with her mouth full. "Mmmph. Mmm! Mahhe iff lihe, hey geh cahahees." Gulp. "Maybe it's like they get cavities. And when they suck blood it, just, it sprays out of the holes in their other teeth. So if you turn into a vampire, brush your teeth!" she admonished.

I laughed and crumbs sprayed out of my mouth. It was absurd, but in just the right way. Grab a silly premise and just keep going with it. //HOSPITAL => LOSE REFLECT. MIRROR NOT KNOW 2WK. VAMPIRE?//

"//I LOST MY REFLECTION AT THE HOSPITAL. I COULDN'T SEE MYSELF IN A MIRROR FOR 2 WEEKS. AM I A VAMPIRE?//" she read. "That's weird. It must have been really scary!" God damn it, Naomi, why did you bring up your brain damage when the two of you were having fun? But she didn't get brought down. She smiled. "Maybe you are. If you can't see yourself, then I have to... get that for you..." 

She leaned over and she licked the strawberry off of my cheek. My whole face flushed. My heart beat faster. Heat rushed through my body. I nearly choked on a wad of cheesecake. The wet patch her tongue had touched me felt a kilometer wide, like every nerve in my body pulled up its roots and moved to my cheek so it could be a part of feeling that sensation. I wasn't sure how I was still breathing and was afraid to investigate too deeply.

She was blushing just as much as I was, I think. She held my hands in hers. Her fear and uncertainty were not going to stop her from going forward. That was why I loved her. That was what I needed. She made my fear and recrimination quieter. But even so, as she brought her lips up to mine, as we both closed our eyes, I couldn't shake the feeling of impending disaster.

And it came.

Sure enough. Not long thereafter, we were lying in her bed, looking up at the ceiling. Both of our clothes undone. Moaning.

"Uuuughhh... I cannot believe you let me eat four slices of cheesecake, Naomi," she groaned.

"Bluuuuhhh..." was all I could respond. It was too much. I was ready to pop. I knew I should have stopped but it was right THERE, it called to me, begging me to eat more, flapping to speak like a strawberry-coated Pac-Man. I'd do it all again if I had half a chance.

"I can't move. You're gonna have to roll me into the car tomorrow."

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

//[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Vraxx] kira kills criminals so if u say he is bad u must be a criminal

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Showmethehoney] Seriously how is this the best place for wool cloth? I'm getting nothing.

To [Justiceangel]: I haven't sent Misa's message yet. Don't want to be too eager. My colleague Eba, however, is convinced this is all a trap, and will not be responding.

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Shadowwraith] vraxx how many pirated mp3s do you have? everyone is a criminal

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Vraxx] honey just buy it on auction house

[Justiceangel] whispered you: How unfortunate for her. If possible, you should copy one of your pages of entries in the Death Note in a replica of her handwriting, onto a blank page. If you cannot do this, then you will have to plant a few blank pages on her.

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Vraxx] mp3 pirating doesnt make u a bad person kira kills bad people 

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Vraxx] you should be more greatful hes keeping u safe

To [Justiceangel]: Is there something we should print on the loose pages? We thought if Kira was handing off pages to suicidal disciples, there might be a letterhead with instructions. 

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Showmethehoney] I'd love to buy it off the AH. But the cheapest it's listed is one gold each!

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Godofdeath] Kira's going to kill everyone, not just the bad people, that's why he's awesome.

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Shadowwraith] how long did it take you to go from "kills criminals" to "kills bad people"? now imagine how easy it is to go the other way.

[Justiceangel] whispered you: Say "Kira will kill named person"

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Vraxx] criminals are bad people genius

[Justiceangel] whispered you: Not "paper kills"

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Shadowwraith] son of arugal outside sepulcher btw, everyone but vraxx watch out

[Justiceangel] whispered you: Have you found a supply of Kira worshipers?

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Stabby] But if killing makes you bad, will Kira kill himself? CHECKMATE ATHESITS

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Showmethehoney] I have two bolts of wool cloth and I have been here for an hour. Why can't it just be cheaper on the AH?

To [Justiceangel] Provisionally. Under a limited circumstance. The yakuza will understandably take a bit more time to shake out.

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Godofdeath] Kira's going to kill the rest of you for sassing him and Vraxx for having bad grammar

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Syrine] You people are why every non-JP guild I apply to just says 「Shut Up About Kira」. You know what? I can't even get mad at it any more.

[Justiceangel] whispered you: 2 weeks to prepare. You still need 1more piece.

[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Showmethehoney] Is Kira going to kill people for listing wool cloth on the AH for one gold apiece? Because SIGN MY ASS UP.//

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I * 

Physical therapy. I'd stayed with it the entire time, even after joining the investigation. Even after moving into the tower. Self-directed physical therapy in the little personal gym Ryuzaki built. Only an hour at a time, while Misa was asleep or getting ready or with Matsuda. But consistent.

The treadmill? That's recovering my cardiovascular health after it waned, and it was a bitch to run with a crutch or a busted knee. These chin ups, shore up my waning upper body strength. So was this speed bag. I had to build my endurance back up with these bench presses, I had wasted away. The paper target? The gun in the locked safe, the one that wasn't special so it had lots of ammunition? Fine motor control. I needed to be accurate. I needed the ability to put a shot on target, and not pull it away. What I used to have. I needed it back.

Physical therapy. Physical therapy is about getting back what you had lost. I had lost a lot. I was going to need to be in my peak shape for what was coming. We were right about the Prosperity Council -- the messages were pouring in. The next step might be dangerous. There was only so much you could do in self-directed physical therapy. Sometimes you needed a therapist with you to push you along. That was why Watari set up an impromptu boxing ring. That was why Mogi was in it across from me in his boxing gear. And everyone but Watari was watching, for obvious reasons.

I had on a long-sleeved sweatshirt -- it was hot, but too many people were watching to show my skin. One of those ice pack kneepads under my pants, to activate pre-emptively when my knee went bad on me. "You ready?" he asked me. I indicated the affirmative. "Okay, I'm not going to go easy on you..." There was an obvious point of attack: my right knee, the bad one. The one I couldn't have worked on because our medical staff were indisposed. A solid hit there and I would go down. Not going easy on me would mean going right for the knee. I started to step forward, then back. Left, then right. The ginga, the neutral stance that keeps you moving in capoeira. 

Misa was sitting next to Light. And I wasn't talking to her, so doubt was creeping in. How did she still feel for him? She still cared. I guess she wasn't the first person to think 'bisexual' meant 'I have one girlfriend and one boyfriend' but that's not how it was going to work out. Light felt... If I was being mean I would say he felt entitled to her. If I was being nice I would say he felt like she was a basic, fundamental part of his world. He was paying more attention to Ryuzaki, always. Kira would do that, but he'd also do that because he was handcuffed to the guy and trying not to lose his cool. Because Ryuzaki had kind of a platonic thing for him. Maybe platonic. If Light was Kira, was still Kira, then I didn't give a flying shit about smooching his girlfriend while we were both bloated with cake. But if he wasn't, or we could drive it out of him, then I was doing something horrible because I couldn't control myself. God, I hoped this wasn't some great circuitous plan of Ryuzaki's, that he always meant for the two broken girls to fall in love.

Mogi thought he saw an opening and took it. He was a boxer, not a kickboxer, and when I put my right leg forward he had to pitch his upper body downward to throw a punch at me. He was quick, but I was quicker. Light on my feet, my right leg was twirling away from him by the time he threw his punch. He tried to pull out, too late, and I transition into a spin-kick that lightly tapped the back of his head. You got points for that. My knee started to ache a bit. 

I miss you so much, Raye. I wish that you could tell me it was okay. I wish you were here doing your stupid impressions that didn't sound anything like the person. Or saying 'Kick his ass, sea bass!' because one person in this room hadn't heard you say it before. And I don't know... I don't know if that hurt me. Am I going to be trapped, pining for a stage of unhealthy infatuation and heightened hopes that would have been shattered? I don't know. I never, ever will. I'll always miss you. I'm sorry for even thinking of that.

Now Mogi's awake. He threw an uppercut at me, and I fell backwards to avoid it, turning into a ground somersault. The moment my hands were flat on the ground I launched into a handspring kick. Mogi had a fifty-fifty shot at blocking my attack, but I chose option C. He guarded his chest and made to grab my ankles, and I darted my legs in between his and spread them, throwing off his balance. I spun into his shin before he could right himself, and he fell to a knee.

"Okay, I think I should specify, I never said I was a professional," Mogi grumbled as he stood. "I said 'I used to box.'"

I'd proven I had it, I think. At least against him. But I didn't stop. I cartwheel kicked him in the arm, I swept his legs out from beneath him. I waited for him to punch and I threw him. I never stopped moving. My knee was throbbing in pain, and he never scored a direct hit. 

I never hit him hard enough to knock him out, but with every touch, I showed my superiority over him. I scored on him again and again, losing myself, until all at once I saw the burning red embarrassment on his face as he got up. I stopped dead. And he nailed me right in the stomach, and I fell over, and I wasn't just doing it to make him feel good.

"All right," he said. "Let's call that a draw." He didn't offer to help me up and I didn't blame him. I'd humiliated him just to feel good about myself. Just to feel like I was back to full strength. Ugh. I caught my breath, and rolled myself to my feet. The cops were applauding Mogi, saying we both did an excellent job, yada yada. Light and Ryuzaki both looked like they had something to say too, when Misa spoke up.

"Is that a text message? Ooh, is it the last guy?" She looked at her phone, and her face fell. She turned the screen to show us all: a brunette American-looking man, an image sent to Misa's number. Underneath were instructions for death. "That is the last guy, isn't it?" she said. This had all just become very real. The danger we were going to be in, who we were against, was all rushing at her. My stomach sank right along with hers. But I kept my cool.

"Scott Davenport, General Electric," said Light. "That was Isamu's guy, right?"

"Exactly," Ryuzaki said. "While we want to wait a few more days before moving, just to be certain, this would indicate that Eba is our Kira. Only she knew that Misa could not solve her problem."

"She, she sure didn't!" Misa said with a nervous chuckle. 

"I'm going to call Wedy," Ryuzaki said. "There is still a chance Eba will message you, but there's no harm in laying out preliminary surveillance. She has a good sense of their schedules by now. We're also going to have to make six people disappear..."

"You're not going to kill them, are you?" Misa asked in a panic. "Don't kill them! Not even to keep me safe!"

Ryuzaki stared at her for a couple of seconds. "I'm not going to kill them, Misa. I'm going to bribe them to disappear for a while. You will just say that you were proving your power, and never agreed to carry out their circumstances."

"Oh. Good. Good!" Misa said. "We've got a big plan, then. Don't worry, Light. We're going to get this all solved soon enough!"

I could only hope she was right.

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

Ryuzaki was damn proud of what we'd done. Eba's phone had already been wiretapped. Wedy was inside her penthouse apartment right now. L had already created another secure facility with a lead-lined cell to contain Kira in -- for if Kira was a being that resided in a person, its escape could also be blocked. The plan was elegant and subtle from here on. Misa would have to do some more acting, so would Matsuda. We would entice her with a string of bait that lured her away from the security of her home, with information too crucial to entrust to the ears of anyone but herself. When she was exposed, we would trap her. The rest of Yotsuba Prosperity Council would stay away from her, for fear of her power, too dangerous to even admit they had sent the second Kira a face to dispose of their dirty work. She would be imprisoned before she could enact any contingency.

And they would find a few pieces of paper in her home, shreds that promised to let Kira kill with a name and face. That would be easy enough to arrange. She'd protest her innocence. The investigation would continue to break down, especially when I revealed L's role in covering up the murder Naomi committed, the one nobody was talking about. Trust breaks down as we seem to go nowhere. My Kira would forfeit his memories. He'd change the batteries in his smoke detector, and get them back, and oh look, Kira has begun killing again! I had two people in L's organization to kill, but luckily I had two options: Naomi's murderous emotions and Misa's suicidal idiocy, enabled by the second Note my Kira was going to move for me. Once that's done, I'll be the only successor to L to be found. Misa would be my shinigami-eyed pet. Now emotionally dependent on her, Naomi is her pet who shoots people who are immune to the Note. I am the God of a new world and I eliminate the scum from it forever.

"You're smiling," Ryuzaki said. "What is so funny?"

"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about that time Matsuda got stuck in a chair," I said.

"Heh. Yeah, that was funny," he replied. 

We both had big plans for the future. But all we could do right now is wait. Sit here in HQ and wait for word, wait for news. Watch whatever he had up on the big screen. Try to flick our wrists at each other so the wave we made in the handcuff chain cancelled out in the middle. Ryuk made like he was jumping rope with it, by drifting through the floor.

"Oh. I forgot to tell you," he said after a while. "Watari notified me and the investigation while you were in isolation. Santoro Zansai died."

"Really? What happened?" Ryuk drifted to a stop as well. This was information a Kira should be appraised of.

"The blood clot for his stroke cleared right away," Ryuzaki said. "Then after an hour and a half, he had a heart attack. As we suspected -- Kira kills by default method if the original method becomes impossible. They did everything they could, but they said it wasn't possible to restart his heart. Zansai was old. Medicine isn't a sure thing. Or maybe the method of inducing a heart attack is irreversible. At least Aiber got them to postpone their kill this week." 

"Oh. That's a tragedy." It was, actually -- Zansai didn't do anything wrong, as far as I knew, and he cared about his community. My pocket Kira was not going to escape justice, in the long run. But it was nice to know how hard it was to evade my justice. Mathematically speaking, Naomi couldn't have been the only one, but it had to have been a small club.

Both of our phones buzzed. Think of the devil. A group text, from Naomi. //MISA GONE SWP DOUBLE//. Then followup //STUNT//.

What.

Ryuzaki and I both texted back in unison, //IS SHE MISSING?//

//YS//

God damn it. Misa went missing and left her stunt double to cover her absence. This meant she was doing something that Naomi or Matsuda would stop. This meant she was doing something stupid. And Rem couldn't see her to bail her out, and she didn't have her memories to even put her stupidity to a productive end!

Ryuzaki called her from the master control panel. "Hi! You've reached the phone of Misa Amane, heartthrob and superstar! I'm probably out making dreams right now--"

Ryuzaki called her from his line. "Hi! You've reached--"

And then he looked at me. I called her from mine. She picked up on the second ring. "Light! Hi, honey!"

"Misa," my voice was stern yet even, "Where are you right now?"

"Don't worry, Light!" she chirped, like she was distracting herself from the fact she was about to throw up. "I'm gonna take care of it. The longer this goes on, the more likely someone gets hurt, right? You get hurt, or Naomi gets hurt, and I don't want that!"

"Misa -- Misa if this is about your feelings, it's okay, I understand that you have to work out some things. I still love you." Those words were easy to say, easy to sound like I meant something. "We can work through this, you don't have to do something silly." Please don't. Please don't do something silly. 

"It's not silly!" she admonished. "It's not silly. Wedy got us the reports of everyone's routine. Tonight is Pai-Gow night for Eba. She's in that little casino place. If she confesses, nobody has to get hurt, and if she's in public, she can't make a big scene."

"Misa? MISA!" Ryuzaki was shouting into the speakerphone. "Do not approach Eba! The operation requires she not be aware of our surveillance!" We didn't have an actual tail on her to keep her suspicions down! If she's approached too early then she doesn't have Death Note pages planted on her no matter how clever I was about the method! The trail is broken, there's no 13 day rule, Kira doesn't stop killing when she's arrested, there are serious questions about if she was framed and if there was a leak of inside information, Ryuzaki gets off his ass and removes my connection! The whole plan is about to be ruined by this blonde idiot and I was too far away to do anything!

"I still love you too, Light," she said. And she hung up. Desperately, I called her again. "Hi! You've reached the phone--"

Me and Ryuzaki looked at each other. Just like that the HQ had gone from the nerve center of everything to a sensory deprivation tank. Eba was in an underground Chinese gambling house called the Little Three Dragons. We didn't have anyone on it. We had her car wired, and Wedy wasn't tailing her because she was at the apartment. Dad and Mogi were here with us. Watari was across town and though he had a chopper, his go-to option was conspicuous as hell. Naomi was behind, and I texted her the address, but she wasn't going to go faster than Misa to the same destination. And if she got there she was the least qualified person possible to negotiate a tricky, delicate situation if Misa got into trouble. 

"Wedy?" L's switchboard put me right in her ear. "Tell me we have eyes on the Little Three Dragons." 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm bugging her house right now, it won't be fifteen minutes. Wait. The casino?" She was so flummoxed that, watching her from the camera she just put in, she almost fell off the ceiling. "No. That wasn't part of the operation profile. If I wire every place she goes then I'm going to get caught, period."

Ryuzaki brought up the external cameras from Eba's car. It wasn't much, but it was something. "Wedy," I told her, "We need as much camera coverage of Little Three Dragons as possible in the next... five minutes. Mission critical."

"All right, hang on," she said, and she dropped onto Eba's old-lady-couch and pulled out her laptop. "If memory serves, their cameras are networked. But this does not come with a secrecy guarantee. This is not enough time to do clean work."

A flurry of clacking keys. Ryuzaki and I looked at each other. "Do we call the cops?" I asked. "It's an illegal parlor. If they shut it down, Eba's going to make herself scarce and not see Misa."

"The whole neighborhood knows about it," Ryuzaki said. "They've paid the local police their monthly bribe money, and they won't respond fast enough in any case. We have no leverage with the police force now that they refuse to aid the investigation."

"And they get bomb threats all the time from disgruntled gamblers. They won't care. Cutting the power is way too suspicious. Watari is too far out to take out infrastructure." I ran my hands through my hair. God damn it Misa. "I... don't know if we can stop Misa from getting there. We need to control the encounter when she does."

Ryuzaki saw what I was suggesting. "We may have to negotiate. She doesn't know how little we have. She's outside of her comfort zone as well; this is a Chinese operation."

We waited.

And we waited.

And then one by one, the camera feeds from Eba's penthouse became the security cameras at the gambling den. Inside and out. Revealing patrons milling about a dingy, smoky two-story chamber lined with pachinko machines and Chinese designs, filled with pai-gow, mah-jong, and other gaming tables. I could smell the cigarette smoke from the other side of the monitor. Most of the patrons were withered and old. There was Eba on the second story, it looked like her game was going real well. But the blonde woman emerging from the subway station wasn't withered or old -- she was Misa Amane, obvious even with her sunglasses and hat. A couple people stopped and asked each other if that was really the famous model. She was. And how did she get here so fast? How long ago did she give Naomi the slip? Help was at least fifteen minutes away. Watari could not shoot her.

We called Misa again and again, but her phone was turned off. She wouldn't be dissuaded from her heart of justice. We watched her from catty-corner angles walking into the run-down little parlor. She talked to the guard at the door, showed him something in her purse, took a picture with him and went inside. Eba stood up and went to the balcony to tap the ash from her cigarette on some unsuspecting head.

Ryuzaki and I locked eyes for a second and held our breath. If he wanted us to bond, well, we were bonding through shared trauma now. Maybe Eba wouldn't notice Misa. Misa was slowly walking past everyone, comparing them to a photo of the woman. Maybe she'd be turned away at the right oh god damn it there it was Misa just got made. 

Eba answered her phone on the first ring. Ryuzaki talked through his filter. All I could do was watch. It felt disgusting to be so powerless. 

"Hello, Kira," said Ryuzaki. "You're talking to L. I can see you and everything in the room right now. I can see your fortunes are up and just like you I can see Misa Amane standing there. Should people begin to die, should people begin to behave strangely, you will find your life extraordinarily unpleasant."

"Who. The actual fuck. Are you." she snarled. Below, Misa stopped to look at a pachinko machine. Can't be dissuaded, can be distracted from her heart of justice. God damn it Misa. Just answer your phone, read the texts... if I could get five words to her I could stop this, I could salvage it!

"I told you. I am L. I'm the one hunting for you, Kira. And I've just found you," Ryuzaki said.

"I ain't no God-damn Kira!" she whispered. "I knew you were going to set me up. I knew it. Misa works for you. Come to set me up. What if I get some people here to slap leather and blow open her head like a pumpkin? You going to keep slinging Christing accusations?"

"No way," I whispered. "All the guards here are Chinese." I pulled up the family registry and frantically searched it. "I don't think she has any family ties here, I think she just likes gambling!"

"I don't think you want to do that," said Ryuzaki. "For one, it would make an awfully big scene. For two, there is an anti-tank rifle being pointed at your heat signature. Firing it would be unpleasant for all of us." This was a bluff. Watari had an antimateriel rifle, but he couldn't see through walls. Boy, I hoped she didn't know how that worked.

She croak-cackled and leaned onto the railing. Below her, a bald guy slapped the cigarette ashes off of his head. "So we got a mother-fucking Mexican standoff, don't we? Now I don't think you normally send your people in just to threaten anyone what looks at them. Not your style." She took a long drag. "So you wanna trade for her safe passage. You wanna call me Kira. You can only get one of those things and it ain't the goddamn second one. What ya got to offer in return?"

"Misa is here to take your confession," said Ryuzaki. "You are going to give it to her." Ryuzaki put his hand over the reciever. "What am I doing here, Light?" he stage-whispered.

"Okay, uh, she's confessing, because..." I stammered. "We're getting the whole Prosperity Council right now, and Misa just wants her part, and you don't know she's the only one who's Kira! Get her to roll on them!"

"You're going to confess to her all of your acts as Kira in the Yotsuba Prosperity Council. Your six partners in crime are being detained right now and other agents are taking their confessions. Those of you who are less culpable will be given reduced sentences."

"So you know about the Prosperity Council?" she said. "Who told you that shit? Was it Mayo? God damn Mayo."

"Okay, now if any of them die, that's proof on her!" I hissed. "She kills them to cover herself, not knowing the other six are all free!" I had to get my Kira to whack a few of his colleagues quick, and make sure Eba had open time she could have done it in. God damn it Misa, why can't I just reach through the screen and grab you by the throat and stop you?

"L has eyes and ears everywhere," Ryuzaki said. "Miss Amane believes you to be the least culpable of the group. Give her a full confession, and if it matches what I know, maybe I will believe her." Misa was going up the stairs now. No obstruction between her and Eba. "A car is being dispatched to take you into custody. Protective custody."

"I'm being framed. I ain't no Kira." She saw Misa approaching, and she hung up. 

We had no people, we had no communication. No way of affecting things on the ground. Able to see everything, powerless to act on it. 

What was Eba going to do? Take the chance to roll on the group, which Ryuzaki assumed would involve Kira powers? Or would she grab Misa and hold a knife to her throat and shout 'Don't nobody move!' The situation was out of control. That was the place I tried to keep situations out of.

Misa greeted her. They bowed politely. Their lips were moving. No idea what they were saying. Eba wasn't going for a weapon... 

Okay. They sat down at a table. Misa went into her bag. She lowered her sunglasses, and she handed Eba something. Some paper. Probably evidence against her. A transcript? 

And then... she got up? Misa got up. Misa started walking away. Ryuzaki mashed the 'redial' button, and Eba picked it up immediately. "That was a quick--" was as far as he got.

"Is this some kind of joke?" Eba snarled. "Is this even L? Am I on a goddamned TV show? First you send the god damn mute at me with the honey-pot. Now you threaten me into giving a fake confession to nobody? You get your fucking rocks off on this, kid? Because I'm gonna find you. And I am going to shove a knitting needle up your dickhole and twirl it until it looks like the inside of a funnel."

Oh no.

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

Oh no no no no no no no no no no nononononononononononono.

Ryuk wasn't even laughing at me. He was chuckling at Eba's vulgarity. He didn't even realize what had just happened.

I stood up, flinging my chair backwards, and I grabbed the handcuff chain linking us and I yanked.

I had to get to the bathroom.

I had to kill myself as fast as I possibly could.

### 
    
    
    * R U L E S *

**60**. After a god of death has brought the Death Note to the human world and given its ownership to a human, that god of death has the right to kill the human using his/her own Death Note for reasons such as disliking the owner.

**CLARIFICATION:** This does not grant the right to kill the human in any other fashion.

 **X-5a**. It is not advisable for a god of death to haunt a human immune to the Death Note, as they will be unable to end the haunting when they wish to. Even though it does not create a valid entry, a god of death haunting such a human must still write that human's name in the Death Note when they die. 

**X-5b**. Gods of death who drop a Death Note in the human world that is picked up by a human will remain leashed to within 235cm of the owner, measured from the human owner's heart to any part of the god of death's body. Distance is fine if it is horizontal or vertical, and even keeping a single toe or wingtip in range is acceptable.

**X-5c**. If a god of death haunts a single human, who dies, and the Death Note is immediately claimed by another human, that god of death will leash to the new owner's proximity. If the Death Note remains unclaimed after 127 seconds, the god of death will have to search for the new owner to attach to them, or return to the shinigami realm.

**X-5d**. If a god of death haunts two or more humans who each own a Death Note that god of death dropped in the human world, that god of death may exit the leash range of one of the humans in order to travel to another haunted human. The god of death should travel directly to his or her destination and may incur punishment for detours.


	6. Six Degrees Of Severance

### 
    
    
    * M I S A *

"I... don't have any idea how to kiss girls..." I stammered. "But it's all going to be all right." I nuzzled up to Naomi's face, and I hugged her, and it was warm, and all was right in the world. "Being with you, I know that everything is going to be okay."

And right then I realized two wonderful things. I was in love with Naomi. 

And Naomi was in love with me. Everything really was going to be okay.

I kissed her on the neck. On the cheek. On the...

And then her arms went totally rigid. Her eyes went wide. She looked terrified. She was grabbing onto me so hard I couldn't move. "W... What's wrong?" I asked. I squirmed in her grip but I couldn't get out. "Naomi, you're hurting me!"

"Love..." she whispered.

"I... I do! But you're scaring me, Naomi!"

"Love... Love, uh. And, and Light." 

"I... yeah, I still love Light," I said. "I don't... want to hurt him. But it's complicated! I'm sure he'll understand." He would! He was super smart. 

"And... And... and, and, and love, and, Kira," she finally said.

I squirmed in her grip some more. "That's not -- I don't -- You know it's not like that any more! I know... I know how much he hurt you... even though he killed my parents' murderer, I love that, but, that doesn't make it..." but she was shaking her head. That's not what she meant. It's not what she was talking about. What, what did she mean?

Oh God.

Oh God no.

I started to whimper. Then I started to sob. And my face fell onto her neck. "Please no," I choked. "Please tell me no. Please tell me it's something else."

But it wasn't. It was the only thing that made sense. I fell in love with Naomi. Because she made me feel safe, and she'd hurt people who tried to hurt me. She worked hard to get me out of danger. I fell in love with Kira because he made me feel safe, and he killed the person who killed my family. He worked hard to make the world not dangerous. I fell in love with Light... because I thought he looked like he'd probably do that? Without talking to him? 

I fell in love with Light because he was Kira. It was the only story that made sense, that was all I cared about. It was the only possible reason for me to be interested in him. I was the second Kira. Ryuzaki was right the whole time. I was the second Kira and somehow, somehow Kiraness crawled out of me, and it took my memories with it. And I made up new ones to fill in the gaps. 

And I thought I deserved to be free because I wasn't Kira. And I killed those people for speaking out against Kira. Against Light. Even... even though they didn't do anything wrong. And they were just scared of ending up like Naomi. Or like Raye. And then I did it! Just what they were afraid of! Kira needed to be reined in, but I was killing people who said he was wrong! I didn't care, I wanted him to make more horrible mistakes!

It was me! I told everyone it wasn't, and it was me! I was a liar! I didn't know anything! Everything was my fault! 

"Please," I whimpered. Naomi was still vice-gripping me. "It wasn't me. Not really. I don't ruh-remember it. It whu-was Kuh-Kuh-Kira. I was puh-possessed." My tears were falling freely onto her. I was blubbering too much for words. Neither of us could talk. 

And she held on to me in that vice-grip with one arm. And the other one... she, she stroked the back of my head. She started to relax her grip. Maybe she was afraid of me running before, but I couldn't walk. I'd fall. She... her grip got looser. She wasn't pinning me. She was holding me. Like I was a person who needed to be held. Like she was going to keep me safe. And make things make sense. 

"It wasn't me," I whispered. "I don't remember. It wasn't me. I was possessed."

She was breathing evenly, like she was controlling herself and it was working. "Know." she said with a nod. Of course she did. She believed me before. But I didn't know I was lying, and I made a liar out of her and Matsuda. She still believed me now. I didn't know if I did.

"We... we have to tell Ryuzaki," I said. "He has to put me back in jail. It's not safe for anyone. I'm not responsible enough to be Kira."

And she shook her head. "Know." Of course. Ryuzaki already knew all of this, didn't he? We were just catching up. It was exactly the thing he said it was: I was Kira when he arrested me and then I wasn't, and he didn't think I was a risk now. We just knew instead of thinking he was playing a logic game. We knew in our souls.

"Th-then... Light! Please don't kill him, Naomi!" I knew she had a gun, I knew she wanted revenge, and if I was the second Kira that meant Light was the one who killed Raye and killed her. She had to be thinking of it. She had to want it. "We can... Ryuzaki already knows too, doesn't he? But he's, he's a good person. He's probably not Kira anymore either, and, and if he is, Kira's inside of him. I want to save him."

And she just said it again. "Know."

"I want you to save me too, Naomi," I whispered. "Please don't let me be Kira. Please don't let me hurt people like you. Please. I love you."

She picked up my head. She looked into my red, tear-stained eyes. "Know." And she kissed me.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

Light is Kira, and Ryuzaki knew before they did. Ryuzaki's not reacted to any of this evidence so far. And Light and Ryuzaki are very close. How to exonerate him, or confirm suspicion? Something Ryuzaki doesn't know about, something Light doesn't know to react to. 

Misa needs to be in character all week, of course. She's afraid of slipping up. She has to be projecting another personality, even a similar one. One that is okay with being Kira. But one that isn't Kira. One who will be kind of jumpy around Light. Because he's so committed to stopping Kira, who her character loves! Better to stay out of his path, you know!

The deception is simple, and at that point, costs the investigation nothing. If Light is Kira, he must have some method of communicating with Kira-Y. He knows what Ryuzaki wants, and will talk his way out of anything Ryuzaki has. So they change things just a bit. They put on a bit of a show at the interview. Naomi expresses her emotions, though sincere, about things that aren't quite what the Yotsuba Prosperity Council think they are. Misa never lays a hint of her suspicion of being the second Kira. The Kuleshov effect is an actress's best friend. They put on a little pageant of an idol who loves only Kira, a bodyguard who will stop at nothing to make her safe and happy. One who has resigned herself to the fact the idol will not love her back. Misa never explains the extent of "Shoko's" disability. She reads a complete and correct sentence as if it was written by "Shoko's" hand.

//I'M SORRY TO MAKE YOU WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THAT CHARADE, BUT IT'S OBVIOUS WHY I COULD NOT TALK ABOUT WHY WE REALLY CAME. BUT NOW YOUR INTENTIONS ARE CLEAR TO ME, BASED ON WHAT I HEARD. I AM THE SECOND KIRA, AND ONE OF YOU KNOWS THE ORIGINAL. AND I THINK YOU KNOW WHY I NEED TO FIND HIM, AND KEEP IT SECRET. WHOEVER HAS CONTACTED KIRA, THE ORIGINAL KIRA, NEEDS TO CONTACT ME.

I DO NOT EXPECT YOU TO ACT WITHOUT PROOF. MY CONTACT INFORMATION IS IN THE PACKET YOU RECIEVED. PURCHASE A BURNER PHONE AND SEND ME THE FACE OF SOMEONE YOU WISH KILLED, OTHER THAN A MEMBER OF YOUR GROUP, TO PROVE MY ABILITIES. WHEN THAT PERSON IS DEAD, WE CAN TALK ABOUT GETTING IN TOUCH WITH KIRA.

I LOOK FORWARD TO WORKING WITH YOU --K2//

Misa Amane's number gets a message from an anonymous burner cell phone, with the face of a man Isamu Egawa wanted dead.

The other five are forwarded from //SHOKO MAKI, SECURITY (TEXT MESSAGE ONLY)//.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

"It's not silly," Misa said. "Wedy got us the reports of everyone's routine. Tonight is Pai-Gow night for Eba. She's in that little casino place. If she confesses, nobody has to get hurt, and if she's in public, she can't make a big scene." Isamu would also be at home tonight. With his wife, Nabiki. But nobody else. 

We were in a panel van on the other side of Yokohama. In the back was a straitjacket, gurney, blindfold, gag, and other various restraints. Random shit I grabbed from props, just in case. Misa and I had on Kevlar underneath our jackets; hers still had gaffer's tape and squib splat marks on it. This was a bad plan, but it was a fast one, and that was what counted. Light could not have the opportunity to know he has to communicate with Isamu, much less to do so. Every one of L's resources, for the next short while, were going to be following Nori while she served Eba with papers. 

I could hear Ryuzaki yelling, though not the words he used. Misa didn't care. "I still love you too, Light," she said, and she hung up, turned her phone to silent. And she meant it. That's why we were doing this. Not giving him a chance to keep being Kira and hurting himself. She took a deep breath and turned off her phone. "They're going."

I rounded the corner into Isamu's neighborhood. Luxury freestanding homes. Even had lawns. All of them had shishi-odoshi. The wooden thing that goes "doink". 

She looked up at me. "We're gonna do this. This is gonna work." I think I needed psyching up more than she did. The last time I went against Kira alone it ended very, very poorly. And she swiped her hand over her face. She didn't really "become" Kasumi, the Yakuza assassin. But she did get an assist.

We pulled in to his driveway. Block exit. Lights on on the ground floor, curtains drawn. One human figure at the window... They quickly pulled away. Shit. All right, no subtle approach. I kicked open my door, and behind me, Misa clicked out her box cutter. One, two, three, four bounding steps to take me to the door. One foot high on the door. Wave Misa down. Draw the gun, take the shot...

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

Shooting a door lock without a specialized doorbuster round is a bad idea, you just jam it. Door hinges are much weaker. A bullet in the wood there will blow off the hinge. I kicked the door in, and it landed with a crash. Isamu and Nabiki were inside, looking shocked. She was like seven months pregnant, wearing her nightgown already. He was in a suit without a jacket, standing behind her, with a kitchen knife to her neck. The dining room table was too large for the two chairs at it; in the kitchen, the granite-topped island was laden with pieces of notebook paper, some of which were in plastic baggies. Some craft project, maybe. 

"Don't m--" was as much as Isamu said.

"DON'T SAY A GOD DAMN WORD, ISAMU!" Misa barked. "Not a syllable!" She waved her box cutter menacingly like I wasn't pointing a gun at them. "You say one syllable that might be about giving something up and she is going to kill you before you finish your sentence." Both of them looked real confused by this. "We don't know what that will do to you but it probably isn't good." I clicked on my laser sight. I shined it right in his eye. "Now... put your hands up. And let her go. Kira."

Slowly, wordlessly, he raised his hands. His wife looked back up to him, and ducked away to cower in the corner of the kitchen. He dropped his knife when she was clear, he looked over...

No! I dove to the side. Misa didn't realize it, I grabbed her by the neck and I YANKED her out of the doorway. In an instant, Nabiki was over the counter, shooting. 

BLAM!

Chips of wood sprayed outward as a chunk of the door frame was peppered by steel balls. She was in on it. She got out of the way instead of asking what was going on. Shit. I noticed too late. Misa gasped in pain as the shot winged her. "Aaaagh, that HURTS!" She looked down to her side, where she was hit. "Ah, ah, it's okay, it hit the vest! Damn, I didn't know how much that smarts!"

Isamu was in the clear for a second. But he wasn't saying anything about giving a thing up. The gun clattered to the floor. And then Isamu pleaded, "It's birdshot! It's birdshot! It will put her down, but it won't kill her!" 

For one, at less than ten meters he didn't know that if he didn't know she was wearing a vest. For two, I don't know what for two was because Misa and I peeked around the corner.

Nabiki was floating, in mid-air, kicking her legs wildly. She was clawing at her throat, batting at an invisible assailant. She wasn't touching the ground, a wall, ANYTHING. Isamu was on his ass on the floor with the shotgun -- a break-action over-under. Shotguns are the only gun civilians in Japan can own, he must have been licensed to hunt with it. He raised the barrel toward us and we ducked out of the way. His wife was still struggling against an invisible noose. No. A hand. 

BLAM!

Isamu fired again, but we were already behind the wall. No magazine, he was going to have to reload. And he'd fired high, into the ceiling. When I rolled back in he had scooted his ass behind the low wall separating kitchen and dining room. I heard him eject his spent shells. They went arcing through the air. And one of them bounced off of something in mid-flight. If it was whatever was holding Nabiki, it was enormous, at least 250 cm. 

"If you want us to keep her safe, we can't do that when she's trying to kill us!" Isamu squealed in a panic. "You need us! She--"

Misa ran from the doorway to under the dining room table, ducking from cover to cover just like I showed her. "Shut up, Kira!" she snarled. "Surrender and all of this can be over!" It was about this time that Nabiki got lowered to the ground. It was also the time I vaulted over the kitchen divider wall and dropped both my knees onto Isamu's chest, while he fumbled with the box of shotshells. It hurt my bad knee to land on him. It hurt him a lot more.

I held the gun to his temple and I snarled. I didn't need to speak. He got the message.

Nabiki fell to her knees, gasping for air. I banged on the counter, and I waved Misa over. But Nabiki wasn't done. "She'll... go to jail... a long time..." she gasped. No she wasn't, but Nabiki didn't know that. "Get her out alone... we can save her..."

"Stop talking!" Misa said. She had the boxcutter to Nabiki's neck. But her hands were shaking. She didn't want to kill. "You're an accomplice! And a hostage!"

"Give it to me," Nabiki said. "I'll do it for you. Humans kill each other. It's what we do."

And then something started to pull the gun from my hand. BLAM! It went off as my hand was wrenched, it nearly blew Isamu's brains out and singed his hair and likely damaged his hearing. Something with big, long, COLD hands wrapped its hands around my weapon. Pulling. Misa's boxcutter went flying across the room and she had no idea how much punching was okay. She grabbed at Nabiki and started yanking her hair, trying to grapple her, until Nabiki stomped Misa's foot and grabbed her in a half nelson.

"Honey, stop!" Isamu begged, his voice atonal. "The baby!"

"WE CAN MAKE ANOTHER ONE!" Nabiki screamed. 

There was a second hand on my weapon now. Fearfully strong. I pulled the trigger twice more, trying to empty the magazine -- the bullets never struck the far wall. Then it pinned my trigger finger with what felt like a giant phalange that had no flesh. It wasn't wrenching the gun away, it was dragging it away and up, and I couldn't break the grip. 

I was standing now, just to keep up with the gun, no longer pinning Isamu to the ground. Misa was watching helplessly. For that matter, so was I. Whatever this thing was wasn't going to shoot me, it was going to hand the gun to Nabiki and she was going to shoot me. My only hope was to get the ammo. Okay. It pulled the boxcutter out of Misa's hand there... none of the chairs moved... the thing has to be standing riiight there. I hope. Every second calculating was one more that gun was moving away from my body. The arc was pulling it toward that cat-clock, but if this thing had shoulders, it would have to twist...

And I let go. My trigger finger still pinned, my middle finger had room to graze the magazine ejector as it was yanked away -- a mag with 3 bullets went clattering onto the table. The entity pulled it in exactly the direction I anticipated, and when it struggled to twist its grip and release my trigger finger, I racked the slide, ejecting the last bullet unfired. The gun was disarmed. I stomped on the mag so Isamu couldn't grab it. Then I stomped on his hand. And ground my foot onto it. The entity had the gun, but Nabiki would have to bludgeon me to death with it. 

Misa had been transfixed by the supernatural event before her. but when my gun got tossed to Nabiki, she had a chance. Nabiki put out one hand to catch the gun, shouted "There's no bullets! It's useless!" And Misa shoved her into the counter. The gun went clattering to the floor. Nabiki pulled a weapon from the counter -- there was another knife sitting right there, but she went for the cutting board. She was in a vulnerable state, but compared to Misa she was still bigger, stronger, and knew at least some kind of martial art. And she wasn't wearing shoes. 

I kicked the shotgun up and grabbed it in midair. Only seconds before Star Kira Platinum would be on me again. I couldn't snap the break action in half, so I chucked it to the far end of the room. And then I felt them on my neck. Lifting me into the air just like Nabiki. Cold, bony fingers. Perfectly shaped for the scars around my neck. The hands of the Reaper lifting me up to choke the life out of me -- or to pin me down so Isamu or his wife could cut out my heart. They left their mark before. Now they were here to finish the job. 

I grabbed its invisible arms. They felt like spinal vertebrae. Misa was pinned by her wrists, and Nabiki grabbed the zip-tie from her jacket to bind them. My legs flailed uselessly. But Misa wasn't giving up. And she wasn't calm, either. 

"Do you not know who you're messing with?" she barked. "Naomi got killed by Kira once before and it didn't TAKE! She crawled BACK because she wasn't DONE WITH YOU! She's the toughest God-damn person on this planet and you freaks have until the count of THREE to surrender before she kicks the living shit out of all of you!" She winced her eyes shut and bellowed. "ONE! TWO! THREE! WRECK THEM!"

I could do nothing. 

The two of them gave a slight sigh of relief. 

THAT was when I kicked the invisible monster in the face with both boots. 

Human arms, human hands -- stands to reason had a human face, too. Arms had to meet, here, judging by the slope. And nothing that has a face enjoys being kicked in it. I doubt I did any lasting damage since it shrugged off bullets, but it had a sense of touch, and it was enough of a startle to let me go while I still had its arms. I wrenched them down to make for a lock, but they vanished from my hands. Great. It was also selectively intangible. 

But I didn't have to worry about disarming anyone and the entity wasn't tangible right now. Isamu had stood up, so the first order of business was to sweep his legs out from under him, then catch him as I rolled to my feet and slam his jaw into the counter on the kitchen island. Judging by this encounter he wasn't planning on telling his ghost friend to leave him, but better safe than sorry. Nabiki pulled the knife, but it was no contest. She didn't even know where to point it before I nailed her elbow, got the knife out of her hand, cut Misa free, and let Misa bind Nabiki's wrists while I watched Isamu moan on the floor. She may have wrestled more than a model who used a stunt double for her fight scenes, but they were both noncombatants, it was no contest. Misa was clapping. "Oh my God! Naomi, you really are the best!" The moment Nabiki's wrists were bound, Misa hopped up on one foot and kissed my cheek. The entity wasn't attacking me. Why not? 

And Nabiki looked very concerned by this. "Well... If we can't do that, then we need to be separated. Just call a mulligan on this fight."

"Stop talking!" Misa snapped. "Stop talking to the ghost! I'm gagging you!" We didn't have official gags, but we bought some new gym socks, and Misa brandished hers.

"Split us up and goourseparaaaahhhhhhfffffff!" Nabiki got out before she got a sock stuffed in her mouth. I knelt down to zip-tie Isamu... and that was when I saw the granite countertop ripped off the kitchen island, sending its papers falling off to the side, and pressed up against me. It pushed me to the floor, but never with shocking or violent force -- like it really was incapable of killing me. It just left me pinned under 200 kilos of rock. 

Misa looked to the couple. Then to me. She was not solving this on her own, and the other side couldn't fight her. I struggled, but I didn't have any range of movement. What was it, what was the word for the thing I needed or I was going to die? The weight was painful. My eyes were watering. I couldn't find a single word.

"I can't, I can't move it on my own," Misa gasped. "I... I need a handle or something, right? Like a lever? Right?" God, I hoped I gave the right gesture to indicate she was correct.

"Get up! Grab the briefcase, pick up the sheets and the gun and let's get the hell out of here!" Nabiki barked once she spat out the gag. She shoulder-checked Misa to the ground, running with her hands tied behind her. "The keys are on the key rack! Cut me out!" Isamu got to his feet in a daze and complied with her orders. I rolled myself back and forth, trying to have some other part of my chest crushed. 

Misa looked around for a broom -- past the Egawas, in a back closet. She had to walk past them both ways, but they weren't stopping her. They grabbed a briefcase, they grabbed the keys. Misa clearly thought about following them, but she made the right choice. The garage was blocked by our van --

And as Misa pried the countertop upward the six inches I needed to be able to tip it sideways, we heard the CRASH of their blue Corolla punching out the side wall of the garage and leaving two muddy streaks on the neighbor's yard as they peeled out of the neighborhood.

I caught my breath. She remembered to lose it, and then caught it again. We couldn't turn the van around in time. "We... we have to get all the evidence out of here we can. They took the papers and the gun, but, but they didn't have any time to clean out any other rooms... What's that smell?" 

Just as I noticed it too, the smoke detector started beeping. There wasn't any...

The oven. Sure enough, Nabiki had turned on all the burners without lighting them. Filling the room with natural gas. Wanted the house to explode when it hit a flame source. If she was counting on it igniting, there was Thermite burning through a hard drive and any incriminating paperwork right now. Fancy smoke detector that can notify you of gas leaking, though, must be a perk of being in charge of home appliances. I went to shut the smoke alarm off so I could think.

Wait.

What's that stuck inside of it?

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

Nabiki Egawa lays tread the moment her wheels hit asphalt. Her assailants won't be pursuing, not with a butcher knife chucked into their front tire. Her husband clutches his hand and moans in pain. He should be reloading the shotgun, but he isn't.

"So let's review," Nabiki says through gritted teeth. "What went wrong that time, so we can avoid it happening again?" 

"I think she broke something in my hand," Isamu whimpers. "We need to go to a hospital."

"We're not going to a hospital!" Nabiki barks. "No guards, long sight lines. Unless Rem can catch bullets, then if that lady gets out before the cops arrive, she has a really good chance of picking us off! Your hand is going to be fine, you big baby. Now, Rem, I thought you said she couldn't be killed by the Death Note, what is this about her being hit but coming back?"

"That is why she cannot be killed," Rem drones. "A human can only have one entry in the Death Note. She was killed by means other than heart attack, but revived by human medicine. If I wrote her name again, it would not take effect."

"Okay." Nabiki bristles with her hands pushing the steering wheel. "That's real good to know." She thinks for a couple of seconds. "Rem, I took some hits back there. Did I lose the baby?"

"I don't know."

"Rem, you can walk through objects, you can walk through people, you can see how long people have left to live, you can stick your head in there and tell me if she's still alive -- BRRRRRR!" Nabiki shudders as Rem phases through her body. 

"Your child is still alive."

"Okay. Great. Fantastic." Nabiki is still shivering. "Now we need to get to the police until we know she's been caught. They can splint your hand there, honey." 

Rem ponders. Isamu whimpers. "Misa seemed proud of that woman." Rem muses. Rem has seen her before, flying out to give away the Death Note -- she had stopped for a few seconds to recall what her negative lifespan meant. "She was very fond. Attached. She kissed the woman."

"Yeah, and that's why we didn't kill her, right?" Nabiki says back even though she wasn't addressed. And as though they had a good chance to kill her they never took. "So what if they're friends or lovers or whatever?"

"Nothing," Rem mumbled as she took out her Death Note and wrote in Greek. //LIGHT YAGAMI. SUICIDE. CONSUMED WITH REGRET BY THE WICKEDNESS OF HIS ACTIONS, HE APOLOGIZES TO HIS MOST RECENT GIRLFRIEND, REVEALS THE EXTENT OF HIS DECEPTIONS AND MANIPULATIONS, AND HELPS HER TO MOVE ON AND FIND HAPPINESS WITH ANOTHER HUMAN AS WELL AS HE POSSIBLY CAN. THEN TO RID HER OF HIS POISONOUS INFLUENCE, HE LEAPS INTO TRAFFIC AND HAS HIS HEAD REMOVED BY A PASSING BUS ON OCTOBER 7th, 2007, 3:08 PM.//

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

Everything was bright and white and cool. Ryuzaki's lips were on mine. My heart was pumping. He was singing.

"Don't you die on me Yagami," he said. Why was he saying that? He pinched my nose and breathed into my mouth again. He sang in English, "「It's all right, and it's okay, and you may look the other way, and we can try, to understand, the New York Times' effect on man...」" as he shoved the flats of his palms into my sternum in time with the music. "You're my subordinate and I didn't give you permission to die." I coughed, and foul-smelling liquid sprayed out of my mouth. He exhaled relief. "He's breathing! Light! Can you hear me, Light? You're alive!" 

"I am?" I was? Groggily I rolled onto my side, and coughed up more. My head was killing me. My mouth tasted absolutely foul. "Where am I? Why is it so bright in here?"

"Light. You are in the women's bathroom at the command center," Ryuzaki said. He was still all perched on the balls of his feet on the tile floor. "Your heart completely stopped, Light. You died."

"Oh. Cool?" That seemed like it would be a neat story to tell. "Where's Ryuk?"

"Who is Ryuk?" he asked. Good question. Who was Ryuk? 

"He was... I think he was here with me?" Everything seemed real foggy. I was here... to do something important... and someone was with me.

"Light. Light! You ran into the women's bathroom. You closed the panic door to snap the handcuff chain. Then you drowned yourself in the toilet. You were dead when I found you." He pointed up to the red box on the wall. "Thank God we have those defibrillators."

"Huh. Did I really do that? I feel like I was here for something else." It was... it was coming back to me I think. I was keeping something secret...

Right. Kira. That was the secret. Big secret, too. Don't wanna tell this guy! Where was Ryuk, anyway? I bet he'd want to laugh at me, or say I wasn't in the spirit of the game.

No, he probably left. You gave up the Note when you died, but you only gave up your memories when you renounced it. Why bother to tell it to take your memories when you die, when that gets accomplished anyway? Whoever made it probably didn't think 'what happens if they die with the note, and come back?' and the answer was the 'give up ownership' event happens and 'give up memories' doesn't. 

I sat up, rubbing my aching head. "Ugh. What was I in here for?" It was really important. I had to get away from something.

Ryuzaki wouldn't stop staring at me. "Kira made you kill yourself. Kira made you kill yourself in a disgusting, humiliating manner." That... That rings a bell, actually. "Light... You really, really aren't Kira, are you?"

I winced at the brightness of the light. Seriously, were all women's rooms this bright? "That's what I've been trying to tell you, dude. I'm not Kira." 

Ryuzaki was looking down at the floor, chewing his nail. "I was so focused on you. I thought it would be an insult to think it wasn't you. Everything was always about you. I figured you were hitting too many buttons for a Holy paladin. I was letting you play your game just so you could feed information to Kira-Y and expose guilty knowledge. I thought I was going to trap you."

Thaaaaaat was it. Guilty knowledge. Naomi and Misa were at the real Kira-Y's place right now, because I fed him a tip I shouldn't have. If Misa looked too much like she was over me where Rem could see it, if Naomi got her suspicions confirmed and then got the Death Note, I'd be dead after 40 seconds plus the time it took to write my name. So I had to do it first. That was why the second entry on my watch paper read:

//LIGHT YAGAMI. DROWNING. 8:14 PM.//

And it was in here, because there were no cameras in the women's room. There was a panic door that locked Ryuzaki out. An AED on the wall. I think I figured drowning was the easiest thing to come back from? I probably had like a 60, 70% chance of being revived. I mean, that ain't great, but it's better than 0%. So I did it in a way that didn't make it look like I was planning on being revived. And it worked! Go me. Man, I hoped I didn't have any brain damage.

"I... I didn't even think it might not be you. I didn't think Misa needed to be monitored outside of contact with you." he continued. "I have two rogue operatives and I didn't even notice it. Light. Light." His sunken eyes were the most dire I ever saw them. "I think I really fucked this investigation up, Light."

"Well, you're not dead yet," I croaked. "There is still room to get worse." I got up on one elbow. "When I died, did I beat myself with a hammer? My head is killing me." It was. It was also clearing. I think. Ryuzaki handed me some pills. "I think... I think Naomi and Misa did this. They ran off, right? Why else waste our time with that big ruse?"

"Misa Amane is active as the second Kira once again," Ryuzaki said. "She hasn't killed me so I assume her power didn't return until just now, when she killed you for being her ex-boyfriend. We have to take her out." Could I kill Misa right now? That would solve a shit-zillion problems for me. I could put her name in the Note. Everyone but me thought she was immune to it, so with a plausible cause of death it wouldn't even be suspicious.

No, no. I can't kill Misa. Rem can't kill me with her Death Note but she was still an invincible spectre that's suicidal over Misa's well-being. A shinigami will be horrifically tortured to death if they kill a human by any means other than the Death Note -- but I doubted Rem would give a shit if I killed Misa. The odds were not good enough, when I couldn't guarantee Misa's impending death was happening at the hands of an unmasked person where Rem could see it. "What if it wasn't her? What if it was Naomi?"

"I don't think so. I'll tell you when I brief the others, but Light, I'm not..." His breaths were heavier and his head was shaking. "I'm not holding back any more. I've put the entire world in danger with my irresponsibility." He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "One of them definitely is. And I missed it."

And then, Ryuzaki's phone started to ring. 

It was Misa. 

I snatched it out of his hand and flipped it open. I was loopy, right? I had to make sure I spoke before she said anything that assumed I was alive. I set the phone to speaker and said "Hey Misa, what's up?"

"L-Light?" she stammered. Perfect. Perfect. Now it looked like she's surprised I am alive. "Why are you-- I need to talk to Ryuzaki, Light. It's really important. Put him on right now."

"I'm here, Misa," he said. "What is going on? You have gone missing."

"Light is Kira!" she blurted. "He's Kira and we know it and we can prove it! He was talking to Isamu at Yotsuba and told them I was going to send him a message, and we made it look like Naomi sent the message instead, and Isamu still knew it was supposed to be from me! Isamu is the guy too, we went to his house, but his Kira power is like a ghost or something and it threw us around and let them escape! He's doing something with sheets of paper! You have to lock Light up right now!"

"Misa... what are you talking about?" I slurred. 

"I know it's not really you, Light!" she said. "It's Kira! It's controlling you or it's blackmailing you or something! Naomi actually fought a Kira and she kicked it in the face and she's gonna beat the shit out of yours too!" She kicked Rem in the face? That was funny.

"This is useful information," Ryuzaki said. "The team is going to need time to go over this. How soon can you return to headquarters?"

Misa did not answer that question. "Lock. Light. Up. Right. Now. Don't talk to him. Don't give him a chance to explain anything. Kira is using him to do evil. Lock him up in an empty room."

"I will detain Light, miss Amane," Ryuzaki said while shaking his head 'no' at me. "But you need to come back here. It isn't safe out there on your own."

There was a wordless grunt in the negative. Naomi was there. She did not trust the offer. Time to be loopy again!

"You guys did kill me, you know. I think you can at least come by to say sorry, right?" Don't come by. Keep Misa in the field and able to get her memories. Lose all ability to claim you didn't know what was happening, and taint your story. 

"KILL you?" Misa barked. "How did we... Oh. Oh, that's how it is. That's what you did. You're really, really smart, Light. You framed us."

"You had ample opportunity to transmit a secret message to the Yotsuba Kira," Ryuzaki said "You are cheating on Light with another woman and would want to be rid of him. You wasted everyone's time and compromised the entire investigation of Yotsuba so you could go to an unknown location, after which point Light died in a vindictive manner. You have prepared yourself for deception by staying in character for a week, but you were surprised and shocked when he was alive. If you have a better story, tell it in person. Otherwise, your access is revoked and every member of the investigation will be hunting you down." He looked up at me with resolve. "We know one of the two of you is Kira. We will not rest until you are captured."

"We're going to get Isamu," she said. "We're going to fix everything."

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

"Deridovely! C'mere!" Ryuk croaks happily, gesturing to the observation hole, waving his acquaintance over. From here, shinigami can observe humanity, deciding who to prey upon. One of the few interesting things in the shinigami realm. "Check this shit out."

The bandaged, masked creature pokes his head to the portal and looks. Inside, he sees a human with no shoes, //LESLIE TAYLOR LAWLIET 75231362// helping up a human who has shoes, //LIGHT YAGAMI -34//

"W... What's that number mean? With the dash."

"It's negative!" Ryuk chortles. "Remember the Death Note I dropped in the human world? He got it! He just killed himself with a page, so the detective looking for whoever has the notebook can bring him back, so Rem -- you remember Rem, right? -- so SHE couldn't kill him like a minute later, and now the detective guy totally trusts him! Where's Gola, I want one of those reference books. I gotta see how bad these humans are screwing with the rules!"

"Oh wow..." The shinigami doesn't quite follow all of that but it sounds neat. "I guess you were right. Humans really are interesting creatures!"

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

"I know this is not an appropriate time to worry about this?" Misa said. "But I really hope being arrested doesn't affect my career. I mean, I guess it isn't for drugs, right?"

I was humiliated, made helpless and powerless, twice. Unable to resist its assault. Our attack had been completely thwarted. The cops came soon after the Egawas left, I was happily surprised Misa didn't tip our location when she saw the blue and red lights pull up. All we could recover was a single blank sheet of notebook paper wedged in a smoke detector.

"I don't know why you had me shoot the gun, either. I know it's probably a complicated plan, but, please remember to explain it when you get a pen." She had to get GSR on her hands. Had to be part of the same crime.

Now we were in the back of a squad car. Handcuffed. Our gear, taken. Everything in the van would be presumed lost outside of the duffle bag and my messenger bag. Those things and the contents of our pockets would be admitted into evidence. Except my cards. My crutch. And that sheet of notebook paper Misa slipped into my pocket. I needed those to walk and to communicate with my interrogator, you see.

Now I couldn't tell Misa everything I had concluded. I didn't have a pen back here, I couldn't use the cards. I had to get HER to realize it. I had to say... what was it... a name... "Kira."

"Okay. Kira. We just learned that Kira is a ghost. Or like a Stand or something." Grunt in the affirmative. "The ghost is the Kira. So then what are Isamu and Light and... and, and, uh, and me?"

"Kill." I said while shaking my head. 

"Kira kills. No. Kira doesn't kill. But Kira does kill people, that's what he does!" 

"Nnngh!" I couldn't get my hands to my head, but I mimed my finger as a pistol and made "pchoo" noises. 

"Shoot. Oh. Kira doesn't SHOOT people." she was starting to get it. "Because Nabiki had to say she would do it for him. So Kira... can't kill anyone, but he does, all the time?"

You should know this Misa, come on, we need to finish this conversation before we get to the station!

"You two should know, just because you claim to be involved with Kira, and the police aren't investigating him, that doesn't mean we'll let you out," said the officer driving. "That didn't work for the last twenty people and it won't work with you." 

Argh! I pointed at Misa as best I could with one hand, and mimed speaking. "You're talking. I'm talking? I'm talking. You can't talk. Right, so I say things... Oh! An interpreter! Kira needs an interpreter! Someone else HAS to do it for him!" The most logical inference to make. Kira was someone or something that can grant the power to kill with a name and face, but Kira must do so through a human intermediary, and was forbidden or incapable of taking life on its own. 

"And. And, paper. Paper." There was paper on the counter. They left in a hurry, she didn't put on shoes, and yet they picked up every single piece. And there was a piece of paper hidden in a smoke detector, where nobody should have been able to find it. 

"They had paper... they ran off with it... they hid some... it was blank, so there was nothing like incriminating written on it. Unless it was invisible ink." Possible, but I didn't think so. "So... the paper itself is special. It's how they use Kira's power! They, they draw up a contract on a sheet, and they sign it in blood or something!" I shushed her before she got to the part where she resulted in that paper being taken out of my pocket. "This is huge!" she whispered back. "We gotta tell L!"

Crap. We were coming up on the station. Why couldn't I just talk like a normal God damned person and whisper her the whole plan?

But then we were being taken out of the car, and walked through the front door of the station. Front desk. Two prisoners, take them this way. The holding cells are in the back, past the offices and the bullpen, so you can't escape without running past thirty cops. We needed to be spotted by the Egawas, who wouldn't know how soon we would be leaving. They just got here, so they'd be at an office having their statements taken. If we were lucky, we'd slip in inconspicuously, they'd run the serial number, and we'd be ready to leave before the Egawas...

Misa fell onto her ass, screaming, as soon as we came through the doors to the bullpen. "HOLY SHIT! WHAT IN GOD'S NAME IS THAT THING?" she howled, pointing an unsteady hand... at nothing. A closed office. With the lights on. And two silhouettes by the window. "IT'S KIRA! IT'S HERE! SOMEONE SHOOT IT! WHERE --" Misa looked around to everyone in a panic. Nobody knew what she was screaming about. Nobody saw what she saw. Everyone was staring at her. Including the eyes on the other side of the blinds. Nabiki's eyes. Right by what she was screaming at. 

Misa couldn't see it before. I still couldn't. It can't be something you can see because you're immune to Kira-ing. But we looked for evidence after Kira left with them... I pulled the blank paper out of the smoke detector when I still had gloves on, but Misa stuffed it in my pocket with her bare hands. Maybe it's a business card... 

I slid my hand into my pocket. I felt a jolt, like a surge of static electricity. And I saw it. Kira.

Looming and gangly, like a skeleton's mummy. Arms and legs made out of spinal columns. Purple, gelatinous hair concealing at least one ophidian eye. Chest like a ribcage with so many extra ribs they were flying off the shoulders. Staring at us. I sort of knew what was coming, so I only staggered backwards into the officer escorting us when I saw the horror. That was a murder wraith. That was a god of death. 

"It's... right... there..." Misa said. "Right where my finger is pointing. Shoot right THERE." 

It wouldn't work. I shot it before. There were no bullet holes in it now. "P... uh. Uh. Paint?"

"Yes! Spray it with paint! So it can't hide!" Misa barked, never taking her eyes off it. 

"Are you two done making a scene?" the officer asked us. "Because you're still under arrest." 

"My name is Rem," the thing said, voice like a rumble coming from a crypt.

The officer pulled Misa to her feet. We shared a glance. Around us, there were murmurs.

"Is that who I think it is?"

"What's she doing, getting arrested?"

"Did she go crazy?"

Okay. New plan. She saw what I was thinking, or close to it. "Sorry! I must be loopy from not eating. Confused my life for a movie again! My apologies. Hey, but if anyone wants to talk to me," she said while staring at 'Rem', "I'll be in the ladies' holding cell, and I have nothing but time!" She winked.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

"I have to see Misa," Rem says. "She is in the ladies' holding cell. You have to take me there."

The lieutenant behind his desk is scrolling on his computer screen, looking for the record of the Egawa's permit for a hunting shotgun. It is probably there, but he can't search an index, and the whole thing is a mess. Computers, right?

Nabiki looks to the LT. Then she looks to Rem. Can't talk in here. She shakes her head when she's sure the cop isn't looking, and makes the 'cut' sign over her throat.

"I don't care what the human enforcer will find suspicious," Rem snarls. "Take me to see Misa."

"Are there some paper records you can look through?" Isamu asks, very helpfully. "This is our home precinct. A copy of our license should be in this building."

"Well, yeah, but the computer's supposed to be faster..." the cop trails off. "Yeah, I'll go check archives. You two sit tight, all right?"

Rem waits until the door is almost finished closing. "He's gone. Ladies holding cell. Now."

"That's not going to be how this works, Rem," Nabiki chides. "You're going to be a good little god of death and do what we say. Isamu, please show her why she's going to be good from now on."

His Death Note is covered in butcher's paper to conceal its properties, but it's right in his briefcase. His handwriting is sloppy from the injury to his hand. But it's clearly legible: //NABIKI EGAWA. 9:03 PM// 

It's 9:18.

"One entry per person," Nabiki says like she's correcting a wayward child. "One kill per entry. You can tell my baby lives with your freaky eyes, so as far as gods of death are concerned, my child is right now a living entity. The notebook isn't separate from how you work. And it can't kill me with a heart attack without killing the baby, can it?" She fixes Rem with an expectant glare. "CAN IT?"

"It... it can't."

"If it can't kill someone in a given way, it tries to make a heart attack. You told us that. But it can't do a heart attack. It's not smart enough to write that I walk to the hospital and deliver a C-section before I die. We know there are things that can happen so that if your name is written you don't die. You warned us not to spell things wrong, remember? But there's no way for it to ever kill two living people at once. So it can't kill me now. And I only get the one entry." she lectures. "Now if you want to kill me you have to do it yourself, and that's going to mean you die. And my husband is going to do what?"

"I'm going to write Misa's name in the Death Note, honey."

"That's riiight. And if you try to write HIS name, well, that's against the rules because you're stopping him from killing her bodyguard! And you die. And guess what I do ten seconds later?" she says like we've all learned a valuable lesson. "We agree we don't hurt Misa, and that's it. Everything else is fair game. You keep your trap shut."

Rem has nothing to do but fume when the door opens through her body.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

"Oh, it's no trouble at all," Misa explained while she autographed her photo. "It's just a big misunderstanding. I'm not upset by it, I know you police work very hard, and it's not much of an inconvenience."

"Ballistic." I said from the back bench. Easier when it was the most recent word I used. "Ballistic."

"Shoko says that the faster you run ballistics, or, like, whatever the thing you do to scan a gun is, then the faster this all gets cleared up," Misa added in an incredibly reasonable voice. "Serial number or something, maybe? I'm not sure. They haven't let her have a writing utensil."

Her cop fan nodded and slid the picture into his back pocket. "Hey, sure," he said with a shrug. "It's not like you're asking me to let you go, or anything. I could tell 'em to speed it up."

"If I asked for you to let me go, would you?" she asked jokingly, batting her eyelashes. 

"This is for my daughter, ma'am." he said frankly. "She brought me to see 'Heart of Hands'."

"Whoa, then I guess I'm lucky you're helping at all!" she chuckled. They bowed to each other, politely, and her fan walked away. She walked back to the bench and sat next to me. The women's holding cell was nicer than in America, and the bench on the wall had a cushion on it, as well as being flanked by nice plush chairs. There was even a TV on the wall. Unfortunately, it was broadcasting the execrable 'Kira Knowledge'. We had two cellmates: a stocky obaasan dozing away, reeking of booze, and a scrawny girl with stringy hair who loved Kira despite not really being Kira's target audience. As a compromise, we turned the TV show low enough so she had to stand under the TV to watch it, and I could pretend it wasn't there. Much more important things to do.

"I have no idea what happened in that movie," Misa said when she sat down. "I'm preeeeeetty sure I wasn't the star?" She looked down. "And... This is all somehow going to get us out of lockup, right?" I nodded at her. "You're certain?" I was.

And that was it. She didn't keep asking, doubt didn't keep gnawing at her. We were getting out because I said so and she was utterly tranquil in her confidence. "Okay. What is our next move?"

I held up one finger. "Rem." She nodded. Rem may come to speak to us. Or start a fight, but that would create an opportunity on its own. Hopefully. I held up a second finger, then I pulled out the paper from my pocket. Between my fingers, I started batting Misa's face with it. 

"Ack! Stop! Stop! Pphhhhhttt!" she sputtered while batting her hands at me uselessly. "Cut it out! It tickles!" I did cut it out, and I held it up for her again. "Why did... Oh. That let us see 'Rem'. So we just kind of run around slapping everyone in the face with it until they all see Rem too." She thought about it. "If you think it's cool to tear it up, I have a better idea. That doesn't put paper in my nose."

Was it okay to tear? If it wasn't, then the rules were so arcane we couldn't predict what was and wasn't okay. And if we tore it up, nobody could get it away from us and sign a death contract. I nodded, and she folded the sheet and started licking it along the folds to weaken it, then tearing it into thin strips. "Bracelet!" she said like she figured out the solution. "Anyone who touches your arm or hand will probably touch it. You can brush it up against someone no problem. But it doesn't look like you are doing anything special. And if you need to destroy it, you can eat it." She mimed swallowing. "Like a spy."

I was impressed, and I hoped the noise I made conveyed that. Immediately, she was lying on her stomach, feet kicking up in the air, like this was muscle memory. And I was down on the ground with her. I watched her carefully folding each strip into a shape she could weave together. "I used to make these in middle school. I was in a home video about them, but I didn't have any lines. Just giggles." She used her earring as a flat tip, rubbing her creases as flat as possible before pulling it apart. "You try one! Fold the strip just like this one. By the end it'll all look like triangles."

I worked slow, careful. Bend... make sure it's aligned with the page edge... crease. These weren't my middle school forte; we made the Japanese version of cootie catchers and our friendship bracelets were plastic beads. But it felt nice. Like we were just hanging out and being friends, and not in lockup with a murderous ghost a few rooms away. Bend... line it up... crease.

"I'd paint this black so it matches your aesthetic," she said without looking up, "but I don't know if paint covers the effect up." The scrawny Kira fan was staring at us while the TV played an ad for a show about a cat who was supposed to solve mysteries but was too lazy, this fall on Sakura. I felt like a detective show advertising in the Kira Praise Hour was a conflict of interest, or at least off-message. 

I tapped for her attention, and I shook my head. Hand around my wrist, like holding a bracelet, I said "You."

"Me? I should wear it." She nodded and returned to her folding. "That makes sense, people want to get closer to me more easily. Plus I can run around slapping people while you wrestle with 'Rem'. It's good to be useful to you." Her feet were idly kicking back and forth. It made me feel younger. Ugh, the fact that I could feel young again should make me feel like an old hag. But just... not so much when I was around her. 

I wanted to kiss her right now. But we had a very important friendship bracelet to make and lockup wasn't the time for public displays of affection.

She looked up at me, and she giggled. I think she was thinking the same thing. She put out her hand daintily, and I kissed the back of it. I felt lighter. All that self-recrimination about loving a killer, how it was destroying me, they were melting slowly but surely. Seeing her stand against an invincible ghost and get arrested for me and keep charging forward was doing a lot for that.

I finished a strip. It was a bit crooked, but Misa looked like it would work. It was almost like -- man, I hadn't thought about that in years. The little caterpillars. I chuckled to myself.

"What?" Misa asked. "What's so funny?"

"Caterpillar..." I said. I wished I had my cards. 

"Caterpillar. What about a caterpillar?"

God damn it, the thing, the thing where they came from, green and white lines... "Printer."

"You printed a caterpillar? No?"

"Uh. Ah. Uhhhhhh.... Line." I stammered. 

"You printed a line of caterpillars?"

Ugh. My mood was ruined. I was already crying in frustration. It was a simple story, a tiny thing, it didn't matter, why did I try? Why couldn't I just say it like a normal functional human being? I waved my hand in frustration to dismiss the idea. Forget it. Not worth it. 

And Misa looked up at me. "No. I want to hear it. I want to know what you have to say." This. This was life and death for her. This was how devoted she was. 

Okay. She cared. This thing, they only had them on the printers, they were, they were, like, a property... "Old."

"Old. Something is old. What thing is old?"

What -- what did I say before? The machine, the old ones, with paper. "Printer."

"Something about an old printer. Right." She clasped her hands together. 

I picked up the ever-dwindling sheet of unripped paper and held it up next to a strip. I mimicked the noise of a printer while slowly moving it upward, and after a bit of that, I did a tearing noise as I pulled the strip away. Pantomime. 

"Old printers did something where you tore a strip off of them. Oh, is that like the thing that had little holes in the sides, in the old movies? That's what the line is?" She was getting it! I mimicked folding, left to right and up to down and right to left and down to up. "Oh, and you folded them. And that is a caterpillar? Is that right?"

Yup. The perforated strips on the side of form feed printer paper, you can tear them off, and you folded them together, and it was a little caterpillar. That's all. A useless little anecdote of what I did when I was 8. Not worth all of that time to communicate for anyone on Earth. Except for Misa Amane.

"It's just a caterpillar. Don't make a big deal out of it," croaked the drunken aunt. 

"I like it," Misa said. "It sounds cute. Could you make one for me?" she asked. "I think we have enough paper here for like one point three bracelets, so there's spares."

So I did. I folded them as tight as I could, like an eight year old, while Misa finished her work on her Rem-revealing friendship bracelet. It did indeed look like a bunch of woven triangles. My caterpillar needed googly eyes, or at least one. It may have been a waste of time, but it wasted just enough time for Misa's friend the cop to come back. He looked... as unhappy as I expected.

"We're releasing both of you," he monotoned. "You're free to go."

"Yay!" Misa chirped. "I told you it was all a big misunderstanding. Thanks so much for your help!"

"It wasn't a misunderstanding!" he spat. "The HEAD OF THE YOKOHAMA POLICE called me! Not his secretary! Not his deputy! The actual commissioner of all police stations in Yokohama, called me AT MY DESK, to tell me what happened wasn't a crime! How did -- he's not in his office! How fast did someone tell him I ran the serial number on that handgun?" Oh. That was... disturbing. I hadn't heard this much the last two times. Was that better or worse than if it was the Prime Minister? The conspiracy didn't reach as high, but more people had to be in on it.

"Well, I mean, whatever it was," Misa said, "we appreciate your understanding."

"You're involved in some dark conspiracy at the highest echelons of power. You are exactly the sort of person Kira should be killing," he spat as he unlocked the door. Scrawny girl started getting worked up over something on the TV. He was wrong, though. This wasn't a conspiracy. This was the two of us. That was how we were going to win: we were clever, flexible and slippery. Kira may kill from afar, and we had short range -- but nothing was going to stick to us, and we didn't have complicated face rules or one-time-only vulnerability windows. From now on I just needed line of sight. Just one woman and her voice, out for revenge.

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

"Light!" Dad couldn't pretend to be stoic right now. He ran at me and hugged me so hard he picked me up off the ground. "Light! You're alive!" Tears were running down his face and into his moustache. "I was so worried! Don't... Don't do that to me, son!"

"Geez, Dad," I squeaked. "You didn't know I was dead until you knew I was alive."

He dropped me and held me by my shoulders. "Light... I could never forgive myself if something happened. Sayu and your mother..."

"Dad! I'm fine. Really. And Ryuzaki said now he knows I'm not Kira," I told him. I started rubbing my neck -- it was sore, especially right where it rested against the bowl. Like it was real sensitive.

"That is the only good news we have," said Ryuzaki. Normally he said everything in a disinterested kind of almost-monotone. Now he was the most serious I ever heard him. Like he was someone who knew he really messed up. "And you all deserve to know the rest of it. Light, may I?"

Why ask me? "Hit it, Ryuzaki."

He pressed a little remote and the main display screen popped up Naomi and Misa's headshots -- Naomi was the photo for her fake ID, but Misa's was literally a headshot from her portfolio, wrapped in rose stem designs, where she was winking and throwing up the 'V for Victory'. "Two of our agents have gone rogue. While she was monitoring her, Naomi Misora became emotionally involved with Misa Amane. They staged a deception by using Misa's stunt double Nori, to distract and occupy our attention. This distraction destroyed our secret surveillance of the Yotsuba Prosperity Council. While we were distracted, they snuck away in secret to a clandestine location. And then Light Yagami killed himself in a humiliating fashion. Misa Amane has re-obtained the power of Kira. Naomi has removed her hearing aid. They have no tracking device and no tail."

"My God!" said Mogi. "Are we safe?"

"It gets worse," he said. "Naomi is armed with a Minuteman's pistol. She used it to kill Koreyoshi Kitamura, and--" He barely even acknowledged the chorus of gasps that came with that statement. "--and, she could not be prosecuted for it. Systems put in place by my employers would destroy the entire economy of Japan if anyone prosecuted a crime committed with that weapon."

"SHE HAS A WHAT?" SHE HAD A WHAT? There was a cacophony and I was part of it. This was absurd. This was insane. I was going to drop Kitamura's murder as a bomb, but this, oh man, this was NOT what I was expecting. Dad said what we were all thinking: "That's impossible, Ryuzaki! How could she be above the law?"

Ryuzaki stared my father down from 30 cm below him. "Where did you think the money for this complex came from, Soichiro? Is solving crimes that lucrative? How did I get a backdoor to every single law enforcement organization on the planet? Why do I have access to the best person of every single profession that has ever existed? Do I look that charismatic to you?" His teeth were gritted. He was crying. Ryuzaki never cried. He held his hand to his forehead, panting, and just when it looked like he was done he started in again. "Do you think good people can bankroll this sort of operation, Soichiro? How many acts of criminal trespass and wiretapping have I ordered while you were in the room? Did you see me falsify drug charges to imprison someone on evidence I never showed to the police? Why do I get to steal cancer patients to use as human shields? How do I have the right to steal Geraldo Coil's name? Whose idea was it to raise orphans who answered only to code letters so NOBODY COULD EVER KNOW WHO THEY WERE? WHERE DOES THE GOD DAMN MONEY COME FROM, SOICHIRO?" He was shouting. Ryuzaki never shouted.

He took a few breaths through gritted teeth to re-control his temper. "Things are the way they are because there are powerful people who want things to be that way. Sometimes these people want someone who will hunt down other criminals and bring them to light. But sometimes they want to send someone in to make a problem completely disappear. They empowered two people to make these goals happen, and gave them the tools they needed. I suppose both went rogue. One offered his detective skills to the people of the world, in the name of Justice. One offered his untraceable weapons to those who had been wronged, in the name of Revenge. And Koreyoshi Kitamura greatly wronged Naomi Misora." How? what the heck was in that file, that Ryuzaki would not stop her from murdering a police official, even one who sided with Kira? "She was visited by a god of death who gave her the power to kill someone and get away with it. I concealed this from you. I was trying not to pick a side between the Minutemen and our employers, but... I will choose the path that's clear. I side with Justice. I pick civilization. The police may not cooperate with us. They may not be able to touch her. But we aren't the police. We're doing what we came here for. We're going to take her down."

The room was silent. It was a lot to take in. There were going to be some big, big people for Kira to kill when this was over. And my best patsy had just been eliminated -- if you had a gun that was above the law, why would you bother seeking out Kira power? I was going to say she could still use it because she didn't need language to use the default heart attack option, but compared to shooting people in the face and walking away, yeah, I can't see her jumping through many hoops for the ability to hand out heart attacks!

Shit! If I can't pin Kira on Naomi with maybe a coerced assist for proper syntax, then it's all Misa. She might be in line for execution. Even if Misa takes the fall but lives, I could get her out once I have total control of L, but Rem may not be so patient. And it's hard to GET total control without someone who has shinigami eyes who can run into my arms and cry about how the big mean brain-damaged cripple made her assist those evil Kira deeds!

"How could you do this?" Matsuda said. "I trusted her, because I trusted YOU! And you, you let us pal around with a murderer!" He was not the only one who was angry. The whole room was practically roiling.

"I had problem with this operation from the start, but I shut up for the sake of the mission," Aizawa barked. "I cannot believe the shit you have gotten us into, Ryuzaki. Consider this my resignation."

"Don't be so hasty. I can't accept that resignation. Because I'm stepping down as leader of this investigation effective immediately." Ryuzaki's voice was a mumble that somehow projected to every corner of the room. "Light Yagami is now leading the case. I will remain as second-in-command and advisor." He took a real deep breath. "I allowed my emotions to compromise the integrity of this investigation. I put all of us in danger. This is the greatest failure of my career and I'm not going to prolong it. Light?"

Oh God he was taking orders from me now. Oh, delicious. Oh, everything just became wonderful, my fortune reversed in a second. I couldn't ask for his name, of course, but if anything took him out by now I was in the clear. I was even going to get Watari! Free and clear! All I had to do was clean up two loose ends, one of whom was brain-damaged and the other of whom was an idiot!

"Okay. Okay." Deep breath. Act like I am thinking hard. "I think if it is Misa, and all she needs is your face, everyone is dead anyway. She's seen our faces. There's nothing we can do about it. But... I don't think that's how that works." I knew that wasn't how it worked, but now I had a chance to infer it. "If it was, she could have done something to Ryuzaki by now. I think..." Steeple hands in front of face, deep thought. "What's more likely? There is one power that allows you to kill with a name and face, and then another power that allows you to kill with a face, that otherwise follows the same rules? Or that there's a power that allows you to kill with a name and face... and a power to know someone's name if you can see their face?

"Whichever one of them it was, they knew my name and face already, but they haven't seen your faces while they possessed that power." Not too far off the real rules, but assuming 'Misa would get name vision and Naomi would not' would let me pin it on Naomi better. "So I don't want anyone leaving this building without facial protection. Aizawa, Mogi, and Matsuda, none of you ever used your first names around them, did you?"

Aizawa had interrupted his storming off procedure and was now waiting to be impressed. "Mogi and I only used our last names. I don't know about Matsuda, he spent a lot of alone time with them."

"We'll... have to think about you, Matsuda," I said. "Misa is incredibly charismatic. I'm honestly not sure where your loyalties lie. Mogi and Aizawa, you're going to have to be our ground game for now. If you are okay with that, Aizawa. But Dad... Dad, everyone was calling you Soichiro so you wouldn't get confused for me." 

Dad looked down. Glum. Defeated. "I'm a point of vulnerability. I could be made to sabotage the investigation. I'll go home."

"Dad, you can't go home," I told him. And this part really was sad. Mom and Sayu were going to be out of their minds. "She can make you do something out there that helps her escape. You need to be in a holding cell with doctors watching you... and probably a convenient place to attempt suicide that makes it possible to revive you." This was really for the best, though. The rest of this investigation might end up having to die, so Dad should be stashed in a safe place. Dad didn't look happy about it, but he wasn't mad at me. Or even, really, Ryuzaki. He was just resigned. 

"Misa attempted to cast blame on Isamu Egawa of the Yotsuba Prosperity Council," Ryuzaki said. I was in charge but he was the guy who was reading the briefings and giving the orders until a minute ago. And my line of communication with Egawa had just been severed -- he was a rogue agent too. "I don't know if Isamu is innocent and under attack, or is Kira-Y and is where she acquired the power. But there were reports of gunfire at the home of Isamu and Nabiki Egawa a few hours ago. Before I handed off investigation lead, I ordered Wedy to the area, and to never remove her helmet." 

"Good. Keep her on that," I told him. "She may have the power to kill but we've got unprecedented information and coordination to track her down with. That's how we're going to win." That, and the sheet of Death Note paper in my watch, with room enough for one more entry. So far, the two entries I'd used already had worked perfectly, though not pleasantly. "All right, there's not many places we know they can go, and Aiber would be most useful at her talent agency. Aiber?" I asked with a tap of his communication panel.

"Yeah, I know, I'm watching it too, Ryuzaki!" he said, voice filled with shock.

"...Wait, watching what?"

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

"I just... I don't know how to explain it to you any clearer," the lieutenant says. "What happened to you wasn't a crime. We can't help you."

"What do you mean?" Isamu asks, incredulous. They are still in the office, giving as much information as they could about possible motives. "She shot my door off, broke into my house, and tried to murder me and my wife with a pistol! What combination of that makes it not a crime? Is there just so much criminality it rolls over back to zero?"

"I don't... I don't know, sir." The man isn't really clear on it himself. "It just... isn't a crime. It's not a thing we're capable of prosecuting. We're not going to charge you with a weapons violation, either. We can return your property, drive you back to your home, and that's about it."

"BACK TO OUR HOME?" Isamu shouts. "Where there's nothing stopping her from walking in and trying to kill us again? Literally, because I don't have a front door any more? You're just going to let her out, aren't you?"

"I..." the officer sighs. "Once they get the paperwork cleared, they're going to release the two of them and return their personal effects. They didn't commit any crime. Because what happened in your home was, apparently, not a crime."

Isamu's about to yell, but Nabiki taps him on the shoulder. "Yelling won't solve anything, honey," she says with a gentleness that is entirely false. "Can I have your phone? I need to go outside and call my sister, to see if she can put us up for the night." She points down to Isamu's briefcase. "Could you make a note, darling? About that TV show we watch? It may not be the most important thing in the world but I would like to see it." And then she pauses. She looks at the desk in front of them. A picture frame that has been turned face down. "And write down something about getting Lieutenant Taro Ogawa a gift. Something that will really make him love me. I think he deserves it."

"I don't... Honey, I don't think he deserves it," Isamu says, but there's only trepidation, not anger. "He couldn't help us, but it wasn't his choice. He didn't really do anything."

"I'm... not allowed to accept gifts," says the LT. "And I couldn't really help you."

"Isamu. I. Insist." Nabiki says in a forceful tone that brooks no disagreement. And then she smiles pleasantly and walks out the door, shivering through Rem's body.

"What was that all about?" asks the officer.

"Oh, nothing," Isamu says while he pulls out a notebook, covered in butcher's paper like a high school textbook. "I... forget things sometimes. So I have a notebook to write myself memos in. Nothing more."

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

"Thanks for all you do for the community," Misa said, giving the patrolman a firm handshake. With the paper friendship bracelet dangling halfway over his hand. 

Right to the next desk. She bowed graciously. Then, ever the cosmopolitan, gave a handshake. "Thanks for all you do for the community."

And her bodyguard was behind her, of course. Holding the bag with our stuff. As she worked her way, with legitimate purpose, to the back of the room. With the office. With the monster.

I wasn't so untouchable that a room full of cops weren't going to STOP me from assassinating someone in the station. But when I drew iron on a giant monster everyone saw, nobody would notice I was aiming behind it. And if the fight went prolonged, they'd be running out of the range where Isamu could see their name tags. 

"Thanks for all you do for the community," Misa said with a winning smile. 

That's six by the time another patrolman ran into the room. "GUYS! Are you not watching this? Turn it -- turn the TV on! Sakura!"

Sakura should be on the tail end of... oh no. Oh shit. I saw Rem's silhouette, but that didn't mean both of them were in there!

The TV flickered on, the volume cranked up. "--epeat this message for the next hour of programming," says a scrambled but feminine voice. Then it cut. 

The host was sitting in his chair. "And now, we're taking a call from Yamada in Yokohama, who has something to say about Kira's impact on the financial sector. Yamada?" 

Misa and I looked at each other. Whatever this was, it was bad. There's no time or ability for me to walk Misa through a nuanced plan of action, so if we want to be in sync it's time to follow her playbook: complete our prior objective with berserk aggression.

"I want you to have a heart attack. Now," commanded the scrambled voice on set.

"Okay, very funny, we get a lot of -- HHHHHHGGGGGGH!" the host grabbed his chest in pain immediately. She killed over the phone. How? Rem was still over here! The host fell out of his chair and started writhing on the floor. This was a tape. It was too late for him.

Everyone watching the TV, transfixed, barely even noticed when Misa grazed their hands with the bracelet as she ran past them. I dropped our duffle bag on an empty desk and tore my pistol and spare mag out of their evidence baggies. My vest was already on, I was a bodyguard, but Misa's wasn't.

The host stopped writhing, and the voice continued. "Good. Now I want the rest of you to listen to me. This is not a message for L. This is for the people of my new kingdom. Misa Amane is the Prophet of Kira. I want her delivered COMPLETELY UNHARMED to the studio where this show is recorded, where she will be taken for safekeeping. Anyone who causes her any injury will spend 23 days begging for death before I grant it to them. Anyone who attempts to prevent Misa's recovery, like the woman with her right now, must be slain to prove your devotion to me."

God. 

Damn it.

"Now, repeat this message for the next hour of programming." the voice concluded. The host was sitting in his chair again. The police were looking at each other. At Misa. Backing away from each other. Office political discussions were about to get really, really relevant. 

Japanese police carry guns while on duty. I knew that. How many of the police here were still on duty enough to have not turned their weapons in to the weapons locker? Does this precinct make you turn it in before you sit down, or before you leave the station? One of them drew his service revolver. Then three more. Pointing at each other, while the rest of the officers tried to gauge who they should be diving toward. Four guns. No idea what side each was on. They didn't know either. 

"You don't think..."

"Our job is clear..."

"You can't possibly believe..." 

"If Kira wants her, there has to be a reason..."

All right, now we're just hoping to turn the entire situation into a total disaster. I grabbed the chair from this empty desk and I hurled it through the office window, shattering it, tearing the mini blinds down. I didn't wait for gasps of shock before I started shooting, because Isamu was sitting with his back to the window.

BLAM! Graze to the shoulder.

BLAM! Solid hit to center mass. He didn't instantly fall, so it wasn't the heart, but I definitely punched a hole in his lung. Blood sprayed all over the far wall. Even if it was a through-and-through, he would NOT be getting far. 

BLAM! Rem's skeletal hand. Glass shards fell from the open window hole as she interposed her body between me and Isamu, who fell to his hands and knees and scampered behind the lieutenant's desk for cover. Any shock at me trying to assassinate someone, and the debate brewing about where the precinct's loyalties lied, was overridden by the gasping terror at the nightmarish bone-beast sticking its face out of the broken window. I knew it was coming and my hands were shaking. I'd never had time to reload beyond sticking the one bullet back in for Misa to fire, so this mag was dry. I ducked behind my little patrolman desk and started reloading. The scattered POP! POP! of .38 Special fire bounced across the room as two of them fired on the beast, tapering to nothing as they realized how little impact they had, how little Rem was doing. They gaped in shock. Worlds were falling apart.

"What the shit is going on?" one officer asked in panic. "She, she just pulled a gun, why are you shooting at-- AAAAAAGH WHAT IS THAT THING?" he screamed as Misa grazed him. But she couldn't get back to me. Someone grabbed her, a younger guy, one of the four armed officers. There were probably 11 cops here, and I had a mag with ten bullets. I just needed to stop Isamu from leaving, which wasn't difficult when he had a sucking chest wound. But if everyone here went to Kira's side, I couldn't drop all of them without reloading even if I had perfect accuracy. And I was really hoping the officers would join me, because those gunshots echoed through the entire station... Most of the cops would be here, but there was a secretary, probably 2 or 3 more officers, and backup coming from another precinct. I hoped wherever the other cops were, they were arguing with each other about Kira. At least Misa got grabbed further from the exit than I was. 

Misa struggled, but couldn't free herself. But the room was quiet. Rem hadn't done anything. She was just... looking. Misa's struggling slowed down.

"Why is it looking at me like that?"

No malice in this god of death. It was forlorn. Sorrowful. Filled with regret. One visible eye, overflowing with pain.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked, desperate and ragged. 

I glanced around at who might be on what side, but kept my face mostly peeking around the corner to see if Isamu was getting up to give something to Rem.

"If you kill him, she will kill you," Rem said in that awful, mournful voice. She turned her head slightly, and she pointed at me, and my heart froze. "She will find a way."

"Why are you telling me this." Misa said through gritted teeth and rapid breaths. "Why are you looking at me like that."

"Write the name while thinking of the face. Write a cause of death within forty seconds. If so, write time and circumstance within 400 seconds. Do not ever write a name you do not intend to kill," Rem said. Was that... She knew we had the paper because we could see her. She was saying how to use it. That was... You just wrote it down? She didn't sign it? Didn't devil-notarize it? She wasn't involved AT ALL? I checked my pocket -- I still had the caterpillar and the top margin. Can't let that shit get away from us.

Oh god. There was a lieutenant in there with Isamu. He didn't HAVE to poke his head up. He was dead the minute they walked in there. Worse. The same thing that happened to me was going to happen to him. The office was behind me. Misa was in front of me to the left. Exit in front of me to the right. Nobody would move until I did, because they didn't know who was on what side...

"Uh! Uh! Ahhhh... Wait!" God it would be nice if I could bark things in a clipped, even tone. What did I have on me? Duffel bag. Had our stuff in it. Misa's vest, her spare clothes, the fake gun, my ammo. I could load more bullets into the other mag...

"Why are you telling me this?" Misa asked. She was stalling for time but she would have asked anyway. "Why am I important to you?"

"Someone... very important to me... cared deeply for you," Rem said. A cell phone rang behind her. Picked up on the second ring. "If you die, so does the last piece of him. If you give up, so would he. It's your right to have the notebook."

Okay, what does every cop have in his desk drawer? Revolver? Nope, backup weapons are only in America, got to keep your guns in the weapons locker. Bottle of bourbon? Nope, because here it's a bottle of shochu! And in a glass bottle, not a hip flask. Little sake cups too, like a tea set. Three quarters full. I don't get you, mystery cop whose desk I raided. 

"If I interfere, they will kill you. I can only kill one of them to protect you," Rem said. She made sure I knew it wasn't just the paper they could use. I believed it. Immunity to Kira isn't immunity to murder.

"Gentlemen!" came the voice from the office. Oh no. Oh no. "And lady, of course! Please, everyone calm down!" The officer wasn't poking his head out from the desk. "This is an angel of Kira, that's all! You all should know this precinct is loyal to Kira's new order!"

My hands started shaking. My grimace threatened to cleave off my jaw. That was how easily he'd done it. He was in there raping this man's fundamental humanity and there was nothing I could do about it. It was all happening again. I didn't care how valuable Isamu was. If he managed to get out of here alive, he was going to beg me for his life before I gave his skull some new air holes.

But if he died, Nabiki would kill Misa. She clearly had a piece or two of the special paper. She'd do what she did to the broadcaster, she'd have Misa whacked, make someone suicide-bomb her, have me taken out. She'd been very insistent on Misa's safety when she clearly didn't care herself. So Rem was in a Mexican standoff with the Egawas over Misa's life, and with L hunting us, I couldn't afford piling on more danger. I had to either take out both of them at the same time, with one of them outside the building. Or I needed to remove their method of attack. 

They don't sell gym socks in packs of two, so we had extras. One can easily join the cause here. I stuffed it into the neck of the shochu bottle and shook it. Of course I had a lighter in here, I needed to burn my written notes to not leave a trail.

"Now everyone, you know what we have to do. Kira has given us orders, and we have to carry them out!" the lieutenant continued. "Any of you who feel disloyal, you will be... will be..." He stopped, Isamu was trying to whisper something to him. "--detained! Your difference in political opinion makes you disloyal, but Kira is merciful." Why would he say that? "Now, please, secure miss Amane, unharmed!"

"Okay... There's something you guys should know, then." Misa said. I could hear it. There was a revolver to her temple and I could hear her asking herself 'What would Kasumi say?' "You know if you use your guns, you might hit me, and then you'll be tortured to death. You should also know that we just got let out because nothing my bodyguard does is legally considered a crime. Her aim is much, much better than yours. And if none of you has a ghost to block bullets for you, anyone who sides with Kira to perform a kidnapping will leave this room in a black bag." I wanted to clap. I told myself she was my voice, and I got partial credit for that. Maybe at least one of them would be intimidated into not attacking. The officer holding her didn't seem impressed.

I didn't clap or cheer. What I did was chuck my Molotov cocktail, exposing as little of my body as possible. Rem was blocking gunfire, but that left a big area above and beside her for a glass bottle of shochu to sail, crack against the back wall, and blanket the area in flaming alcohol. 

If this patrolman's vice was Bacardi 151, I'd be causing a serious problem in there, flushing both men from cover because the alternative was death. But shochu didn't have enough alcohol content for that. Anyone who ever had a friend show the cool trick of lighting a fire on their skin would know how the flames would FWOOSH over and leave them untouched. But paper, paper would have a problem. Paper would burn like it is wont to do.

I hoped.

One more gun was drawn on me but I was already behind the desk when I heard the staccato POP! of gunfire. Wood chunks exploded above me, paperwork went flying. Whoever had Misa tried to stare me down. Holding her like a human shield. Gun to her head. He had a human shield 25 cm shorter than he was, and he let me stand still to aim, so he was confident I wouldn't shoot. There was a very important question I couldn't ask him. Did he know what they called me at the FBI?

He got as far as "Ki--" before he lost the back of his head with a BLAM! That was as long as it took to see his trigger discipline, that he wasn't sticking his finger into the trigger guard before he intended to fire. A very good, very responsible habit to have for a police officer, instilled in him by police firearm training that said firearms were a last resort. When you're a piece of shit cultist for a serial killer who's holding a human shield, though, the threat that your death spasms will cause you to pull the trigger is the only reason I have not to blow your fucking head off. 

It was "Massacre Misora", by the way.

Misa dove to the ground and scampered toward me, and I let the box cutter drop when she was close enough to grab it. "Anybody comes at me I'm gonna stab you!" she shouted to the room, and then whispered to me, "How in the heck are we going to get out of here?" She flicked the blade open, taking heavy ragged breaths, holding it with both hands and waiting for someone to try and get around this desk and grab her.

"The cooler!" came the voice of the cop in the office. "There's still water in it! We can put it out!" Shit. I hoped the paper didn't like being wet. Now there was more gunfire. Blood sprayed the wall above us in a fine mist -- then another shot from another direction. They'd shot each other. Now was the perfect time to escape, but I had to see if I could get line of sight on Isamu as he went to dunk the notebook. There was a water cooler in the office, could I break it somehow...

No. It was behind the wooden door. BLAM! BLAM! I hoped I tagged it, broke it open before the burning notebook could be dunked in, but I knew I wasn't going to be that lucky. It looked like someone was winning the scuffle between the officers. I heard the one in the office exclaim in surprise "Where did all the water go?" about when a broad-shouldered man and a stocky woman looked at me with sinister intent.

"You're under arrest for murdering a police officer," she snarled as I ducked back into cover. No gunshot yet. We couldn't get up. One gun left, at least. If we stood up, we'd have our heads blown off. They didn't know how bad my hearing was on the left, I doubted they would walk around... They were going to wait for backup. Misa was still gasping, holding her box cutter with both hands. 

"You're under arrest," the woman repeated. "Come out with your hands up." If I did, I'd have my head blown off. If she was handing out threats, the anti-Kira police were dealt with. We needed a way out.

Misa was necessary. I took some slow, deep breaths, calming myself. If I was panicking I wouldn't be able to talk at all. Maybe better that way. I held the duffle bag vertically, and I put it in Misa's hands. Her eyes were wide, looking to me for answers. I held out my hands like I was holding the bag, and I jerked them upwards. She nodded. Then I had to turn away, put my good ear facing them. Crouched, ready to spring. Held out my hand with three fingers. Two. One.

When you are waiting for someone to jump out of cover, and that person has a gun, waiting long enough to identify their head might be suicidal. So when Misa suddenly jerked a dark, soft, cylindrical object upwards, either this cop-cultist was NOT going to shoot the sudden movement before she could identify it wasn't a head, meaning she had her finger off the trigger like her friend. Or...

POP!

Or she would shoot it. Now our bag had a hole in it.

"What in God's name are you DOING!" her colleague shouted. "You could have shot Misa! Are you INSANE?"

And he'd grab her arm or her shooting hand, and divert her attention to him as he tried to restrain her. I sprung up over the desk. There's no room for mercy because she's a woman, and if there was, this was after she shot one of her colleagues for standing against Kira's order. No time for any fancy trick-shooting to knock the gun out of her hand. 

BLAM! BLAM!

Two shots to center mass. She fell forward onto the desk like a bag of potting soil, and she slid off with a trail of blood, just like the coworker she shot. Her friend looked at me. Then at the gun she was holding. Then at the barrel pointed into his face. He put his hands up and backed off, slowly. "Okay. Okay. Let's all calm down. Let's discuss this like adults."

Rem was behind him, in the office. But not in the front. Isamu and the lieutenant were behind the big desk, but Rem was against the wall, with her arm phasing out of the brick wall. God damn it, god damn it, that was an exterior wall, her arm was poking out into the parking lot. I could have missed a sound when my head was turned to Misa and my bad ear was toward the office...

There was a scuffle. Grunts. Something collided with a metal desk leg. And a man in a patrolman's uniform with blood streaming from his forehead ran at the cultist now asking me to be reasonable, and tackled him to the ground. Shit. God damn it. I bounded over one desk. How much time do I have, how many more of them are on the ground? Who was going to grab the gun in the tussle?

I had absolutely no time to think about how to solve this problem. The wall of the lieutenant's office exploded inward like in a Sergio Leone movie, rammed open by the back of an ambulance. Shit! Did they smash it open in one go, or did they hit before when my bad ear was turned that way? The back of the ambulance went right through Rem's body. The back doors got kicked open, and there was Nabiki Egawa, barefoot, pregnant, holding a shotgun, shouting "Get him inside! Hurry!" She saw me, I saw her, and I plummeted to the ground just as she pulled the trigger. Papers went flying everywhere, filling the room with a blizzard as she filled this desk with birdshot. "WHY THE FUCK HAVEN'T YOU PEOPLE TAKEN OFF THAT MUTE BITCH'S HEAD?" she screamed.

Okay. She must have got her gun back from evidence before we got out. 

"Please!" the lieutenant called to his patrol officers. "We need to evacuate this man! He needs medical attention -- don't let her assassinate him!"

I wasn't standing up, not without some bait to throw. I only exposed my gun and the barest part of my wrist when I put my hand over the desk and blind-fired in Nabiki's direction. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! I didn't think I was going to hit anyone on purpose, but that isn't the point. You fire blind so that your opponent ducks into cover, so you won't hit them by accident. 

But I knew I didn't hit. I knew she wasn't hiding. I could see the shadows shifting. Rem was playing inhuman shield again. "This is how she will win," she intoned. "She will do anything." There couldn't have been time to fit Isamu onto a gurney, because right away, the ambulance was peeling out. Rem was dragged along with it.

For about two seconds, the only sound in the bullpen was the soft crinkling of paper sheets wafting to the floor.

Then the guys on the ground started fighting over the gun again. We could not stay here. We had no idea who was on our side, and any mistake would be costly.

Misa must have had the same idea. She had the bag slung over her shoulder, box cutter in her hand. "Come on! Let's get the Hell out of here, I figured out how we can escape! Out the front!" She beckoned me over from around the side. My knee, already aching, started to flare up as if it knew it was going to be having a terrible time without that crutch when I scampered out. Commotion from behind us as we ran, but nobody was poking up. We stood, I turned backwards, and fired a couple more shots as we ran to keep their heads down. BLAM! BLAM! Nobody would follow us as we sprinted out the front doors.

And I got grabbed the moment we passed the wall that separated the bullpen from the lobby. Of course. There was more than enough time for someone to come from elsewhere in the building, but he would have to hide behind a wall, because I'd be able to shoot him easily when he walked in. A somewhat portly guy grabbed my arm and twisted, locking it around his nightstick, pointing my gun away from his body and trying to wrest it from my grasp. I had to try and get him to bend forward, get some momentum to throw him--

"Get OFF of her!" Misa barked, and she leapt forward with the box cutter, stabbing him as hard as she could with both hands. He screamed in pain, and that was long enough for me to smash my elbow into his jaw. That bought me enough time to twist my way out of his partial arm lock. That gave me the time to put my good knee into his solar plexus and send him to the floor. Who else was here? A receptionist, staring at me with hate and terror in her eyes but not willing to move. Nobody else between me and the door. Nobody else outside the glass doors. I didn't need to shoot this guy. 

I needed to run. He had friends coming.

I shoulder-tackled the exit doors open and burst out into the dark, rain-slick parking lot, Misa following a step behind. We were out of the building. With no ride, stranded in enemy territory, with the cops from the next three precincts over all closing in.

"ALL RIGHT!" Misa shouted at the top of her lungs. "WHICH ONE OF YOU VULTURES WANTS AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW?"

### 
    
    
    * R U L E S *

**2b**. The human who touches the Death Note can recognize the image and voice of its original owner, a god of death, even if the human is not the owner of the note.

**CLARIFICATION:** A human who owns the Death Note can revoke this ability, but a human who does not own it may not unless they gain ownership first.

**X-6a**. Gods of death are invisible and intangible to the human world. This invisibility is revoked for those who have touched the Death Note they haunt, but they may revoke their intangibility at will, if for example they wish to pick up or manipulate objects. A god of death who does so while halfway through a solid object may still move through that object.

**X-6b**. Human methods of recording, whether of pictures or sound, are perfectly able to capture the likeness and voice of gods of death. Only gods of death themselves, and those humans touched by the notes haunted by the depicted gods of death, are able to see and hear the recordings.

**X-6c**. Human recording devices can also capture images that can be read by Shinigami Eyes, displaying name and lifespan of the captured human. The lifespan is only accurate at the time the picture is taken, and if the image is old, envisioning it while writing the human's name may not be accurate enough to kill that human.


	7. Magnificent

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

"DRIVE!" Nabiki shouts as she loads her husband onto the gurney. "We need to get the hell out of here!" 

Isamu is moaning. His skin is turning grey. Plastic from a binder cover has been taped over the front and back of his wound, to let air out but not in. It's only delaying things. His lung is collapsing, and air whistles out with each halting breath he takes. He's clutching a black notebook labeled //DEATH NOTE// whose bottom right corner has been burned up, and the rest drenched in water. 

"You don't have to tell me that, lady!" the ambulance driver shouts back. "I knock over a wall to rescue a guy with a pierced lung, assume I'm taking him to the hospital!"

"NO HOSPITALS!" she barks. "No records of gunshot wounds! No publicly accessible area she can finish the job because SOMEBODY can't arrest her!" She yanks the Death Note out of Isamu's hands and shoves it into the hands of Officer Ogawa, who had been looking at her with googly eyes. "Slap him on the cheek with this and then tell him where a mob doctor is!"

"Lady, I don't know what you think my job is, but unless we have a doctor on board, this thing is just a hospital taxi! We're not permitted to-- Ow, stop that, I'm driving! What are JESUS CHRIST WHAT IS THAT?"

Nabiki gets out of the way of the paramedic stabilizing Isamu's vitals. She grabs his hand in both of hers and kneels over. "Honey. You're going to be okay. We're going someplace safe, with someone who is really, really good at treating gunshot wounds. Just hang on, all right? I know it hurts a lot, but you just need to hang in there for me. And the baby. You still have to choose her name, don't you?"

Isamu can only nod weakly.

Then Nabiki turns to Rem with a scowl. The paramedic is doing her best not to notice that god of death looming over her. Nabiki pulls out her wallet, and pulls out the sheet of paper stuffed behind her driver's license. It already has //MISA AMA// written on it, and beneath, //HEART ATTACK. OCTOBER 9, 2007. HEART FINALLY GIVES OUT AFTER THREE WEEKS OF AGONIZING, UNTREATABLE NERVE PAIN.// "If he dies, Misa's dead. I don't care if I don't get into Heaven. If he dies, I will write this last character with your hand sticking out of a hole in my chest and clutching my beating heart. Do you understand me? Your little pet takes away the man I love and there is NOTHING left for me and there is NO limit to the suffering I am willing to inflict." She drops the wallet back into her purse, paper between her fingers. 

Rem, a buzzkill, cannot help herself. She cannot stop herself. If she isn't thinking about the rules she might be thinking about how absolutely panicked and helpless she is. "Using the note won't matter. The rules are clear. There is only nothingness for both of you after death."

"Is that so?" Nabiki asks, drooling sarcasm. "I find that very interesting, Rem, because the rules were also clear that using the Note bars you from Heaven and Hell. Why would you have written that rule if nobody goes there anyway? Hmm? Do you think your corpse-gods changed their minds on where people go? Hmm, maybe that's it. That's probably it, isn't it, sweetie? They wrote one thing, and they got to the end of the list, and they just, they decided 'Nah, I don't like what I said before'! That sounds like some bosses I've heard, right?" Her smile was pure hatred. "And they can get away with that, because none of you know anything about where people go after death anyway. Because you're a bunch of PARASITES with DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR! 

"Do you even know when the printing process that makes a notebook like this was invented?" she asks, unable to maintain her facade of condescending kindness. "I looked it up! 1888! You can't exist without an object invented in the late 19th century! You're not gods of death! You're glorified notebook caddies and you don't know a god damn thing about how the world works and if every single one of you turned to ash TOMORROW everything in the universe would be better off for it! Congratulations! You convinced me that you don't know shit about life after death, and when I kick open the Pearly Gates I'm holding them open so my husband can walk through like he owns the place! So why don't you QUIT ACTING LIKE YOU KNOW ANYTHING!" Rem looks on with disgust.

She closes her eyes and breathes deeply through her teeth. "I'm... I'm sorry, Rem. I'm under a lot of stress right now and it's making me lose my temper. I didn't mean to say all those things. I spoke out of anger." Another inhale and exhale. She opens her eyes. "But I will complete Misa's name the attosecond my husband passes away. This paper and pen don't leave my hand until his condition is stable. So if there's anything you can do to help, then for both of our sakes, do it."

"Is all of this what that '40 seconds, 400 seconds' thing was about?" Ogawa asks. "Is that how you kill people? That's so smart of you."

Nabiki scowls up at Rem. "You told her?"

"She owned at least one piece. She could have used it without recognizing its significance. That would be dangerous. I told her not to kill Isamu with it," says Rem.

"Yeah but the problem is, what if she doesn't believe you?" snaps Nabiki while she searches the rear of the ambulance. "Nnnngggghhhh... Isn't there something caustic back here -- Here we go! Officer, give me your socks and your belt." She shakes up a container of caustic disinfectant, something meant to be diluted twenty times over, while the cop hurriedly removes his shoes. She looks down into her husband's eyes. "Honey. Honey! Misa has a piece of the Note and she knows how to use it. She can't get me, but she knows your name and face, okay? We can't change your name. We'll have to change your face." She dabs some of the liquid into a wadded-up sock, and the smell makes her recoil. "I'm going to try and make the burns as superficial as possible, and only the areas a cosmetic surgeon can fix easily. Okay? I'm staying off your nose, your eyes, and your lips. Once this is over, we're going to go to a surgeon, and you are going to get skin grafts, and you are going to look fantastic. Do you hear me, baby? Fan. Tastic. I am going to rock your entire world for every single day you need bandages on. Are you ready, honey?" She puts the belt in his mouth. "Because there are not enough painkillers in the world to make this not hurt like an absolute bitch."

Isamu nods and clamps down on the belt in his mouth. Already in agony, he is eager to be painfully disfigured by the woman he loves, so they can keep pursuing their dream of a perfect life. He begins screaming in pain as Nabiki applies the caustic sock to his forehead and cheeks.

Rem recoils in horror. She doesn't know if this is the apex of humans being disgusting, or an entirely new dimension of their repulsiveness.

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

"This is an NHN exclusive," said the voice of a female newscaster, whose face wasn't being displayed. "An interview with the... controversial? The embattled model and actress Misa Amane. NHN cautions our viewers that this tape contains shocking language and content." The video feed cut to a static glamour shot of Misa. Ryuzaki and I looked at each other. He didn't know why this would be terrible, but it was going to be terrible. 

Man's voice. "Misa, why are you running from the police! What are we doing here?"

Misa's voice. Cool, even, even though she's clearly being tilted around and trying to keep her balance. "My bodyguard is licensed to carry a weapon, but police sometimes don't understand that." Click. "We cooperate with the arresting officers until they realize there hasn't been a crime." Click.

Man's voice. "That was why you are at the police station, Misa, why are we now fleeing it in my car? What were those gunshots about?"

Click. Misa's voice. "They aren't the police any more. When you decide to kidnap someone for being the prophet of Kira, because of the command of, of not even the real Kira, you stop being a police officer." Click. "At that point you are a cultist." The clicks -- she was reloading bullets into a magazine. Slowly, since she was unfamiliar with it. "They shot at us. We're allowed to escape if -- Don't look at me! Look out! You are looking for the ambulance right now! You can hear me just fine!"

The playback stopped. The newscaster's voice once again. "Miss Amane refers to an incident, earlier that night, where a voice that is believed to belong to Kira killed a host of Sakura TV, declared Misa a prophet, and commanded its followers to deliver her unharmed to Sakura TV's studio. NHN takes no position on that event."

"Doesn't make sense," Ryuzaki mumbled. "Why declare herself a prophet, and then run?"

"She didn't," I said. "Isamu did. She was telling the truth about him -- he has something they both want. Probably related to Kira. Since she's immune, he had to get rid of her."

The man's voice was back. "Misa! What about your prior statements about Kira? Are you saying that you are not Kira's prophet?"

Misa. Click. "I'm not, and that doesn't matter because that wasn't the real Kira. It's a fake. Her name is..." Pause. Click. "...something we can't make public but if we find that ambulance you should hide your face."

She's looking over to Naomi for cues. Good. I can use that. Naomi is the one in charge. 

Man's voice. "Why would Kira consider you his prophet?" 

Click. Misa's voice. "I... I don't know why people get obsessed with me. I've had a stalker try to kill me, and more get too close. I had a criminal murder my parents in front of me just because he could. People want, they want some image I project. They want a doll. They want something they imagined that was in my same general shape. Now there's a monster who is obsessed with me. I have no idea why people fall in love with me like that. I don't know if it is love. I'm just a performer. I try my hardest to be beautiful to look at and fun to spend time with. But I'm really just a performer. A manufactured starlet who never really meant any of the things people saw in me." She was quieter now, further away mentally. 

Man's voice. "So, does this mean that you're changing your public stance on Kira? You've come out as a vocal supporter of Kira in the past, were those statements coerced?"

Misa. Soft. Far off. "This is it, isn't it? If I don't turn myself in to Sakura TV, my entire career is over. I stop being a tragic, pitiable figure, and I become a walking controversy who gets involved in family-unfriendly, scary events, too big a liability to attach to any project. People are going to call to boycott anything I do if I keep fighting. When they aren't coming after me with cans of gasoline." Long pause. Deep breath. Click. "Shoko, I'm going to have to crash on your couch for a while when this is over. I was wrong about Kira. Kira is a selfish parasite who doesn't care how much suffering he inflicts. He wants to make a world for himself, not us. Oh, shit! That's the ambulance!" she said with a sudden shift. "Get down, we're... we're not stopping? I don't... Right. Because there's way too many guys there. Okay. We're going to regroup. Keep going, uh, I'll keep interviewing.

"I have a lot of fans who love Kira," she continued with a click, "and I know they're scared. And there's awful people in the world. And yeah, a lot of people who we'd all be better off if they died. But Kira doesn't love you. You can't love someone without respecting them. Kira would kill any one of you if you were in his way somehow." Click. "Some of you have been with Misa Misa ever since I was a middle schooler, and you got official T-shirts my dad and I printed at the mall. And some of you may have discovered me yesterday. But if I have any of you left who can pass as -- No! Okay! Don't pass as me, because, yeah, that would actually be pretty dangerous! But, uh, if I have any fans left after all this, then, do what you can to stop them from finding us! Call in fake sightings to whatever hot line they set up! Anyone asks you if you saw me, if they are a cop or not, you tell them a random direction to walk in! This might be the last time you see or hear from me, but the more time you buy us, the more time we have to stop these monsters. And I promise you, we are going to stop these monsters, because we still care about you!"

I gritted my teeth. These were not encouraging things for Misa to say. She was totally against me now, which meant SOMEONE had to go get the note from the park. And since I mentioned Ryuk while I was coming back from Death, nobody who would talk to Ryuzaki could touch it.

Man's voice. "Misa, what do you say to the allegations you were in rehab for a drug addiction during --"

Misa. "WERE YOU EVEN LISTENING? What kind of stupid question is that? I am about to risk my life -- Gimme that! Gimme the tape recorder!" Sounds of a scuffle. "Okay! They're gonna kick me off the movie I'm making, so, I recommend finishing it with my stunt double! She had no idea what we were doing, I just used her to get out of cast meetings and stuff, and she really wants to try a star role. She can just ADR my lines I already recorded! Two! Any money I have coming that you don't want to give me any more should go to a charity for neurological speech disorders! Three -- Hey! No! This is an interview! This is exclusive content!" More scuffling, then the recording cut out. 

"A kinder, gentler Kira," Ryuzaki said as he set the TV to mute. "A Kira who respects and loves you, not like the old one." 

"She's setting herself up for some great PR," I replied. "Make herself the hero who stopped Kira and used his powers for good. If anyone on the team would be good at manipulating public opinion, it's her." Definitely had to get her memories back. "If she even intends to be Kira, rather than Kira's voice. She was definitely looking to Naomi for cues as to what to say. I think it's still a mistake to assume the one who speaks the most fluently is making the decisions. In either case Naomi has a powerful hold on her -- she just gave away millions of yen to an unknown charity for the same kind of disorder Naomi has, to look compassionate for her."

Ryuzaki just looked at me. "You won't have her back, Light."

"Excuse me?"

"Being L," he said. "The position you clearly want. Even if your girlfriend was totally innocent of all charges and coerced into aiding miss Misora. If you're L? You don't get to have a relationship like that. Nobody is that close to you. If you're thinking you will reconcile and win her love back... perhaps temper your expectations."

She wasn't going to be my girlfriend. She was going to be my Shinigami Eyes delivery platform. She'd just think she was my girlfriend. "Look, whatever is happening is insane. We can just figure out how things are going to happen when everything calms down a bit, and worry about it then. If you're concerned my emotions will get in the way, believe me, they won't."

Ryuzaki showly shook his head. "Your old life isn't coming back, Light."

"So?" I snapped at him. "If I have the chance to help the world, make it a better place by hunting down criminals and murderers, why wouldn't I take it? How selfish would I have to be to turn that down so I could go out on dates?" I believed it all, but I was also a bit too harsh on Ryuzaki. He had been through this life. He was speaking from experience. Probably why he was so miserably alone and wanted to be my friend to begin with. "I... Look, we're getting off topic. We know where they started, and we know when she found the ambulance they were chasing -- which had Isamu in it. Can we run some kind of analytics based on how fast they were going, find where he was?"

"We can tell when they were turning from the audio," Ryuzaki replied, "but not if they were turning left or right. They could have, in theory, gone in a spiral, or a zigzag pattern. I'll start boosting the ambient audio and removing Misa's speech, but I'll only narrow it down to a band." He slid over to the console and started tapping away.

"Well, let's analyze it logically. Narrow down the possibilities," I said. "There's a shootout at the police station. You're surprised that the women who attacked you are being let go and immediately go after you. You can't use your Kira powers on either one of them, so you have to use the Kira TV show to order the police to get them off of your back. But that takes time. You have to wait on hold and go through call screening. Ambulances are great targets of opportunity as they're often unlocked with the engine running as they load or unload patients, but all of that implies to me the ambulance wasn't the nearest vehicle he could grab -- they had time to choose a better ride. He or his wife is injured. Naomi clipped one of them."

"And they can't go to a hospital. Not when the police won't help them," said Ryuzaki.

"So where are they going to want to go? Someone who deals with gunshot wounds and keeps them quiet. A Mob doctor." I told Isamu to put out feelers for his company's yakuza contacts, but this is way faster than he anticipated having to go. I doubt they are on board yet. He's got some tough negotiation ahead. "He was in home appliances himself, but we know the company had dealings with organized crime. He may have some allies... or friends of friends, anyway."

Myself, Ryuzaki, Watari. Wedy and Aiber. Mogi and Aizawa. Unless his chefs and janitors had hidden skills and competencies, the Kira Special Investigative Team was down to five people who could go outside. No. We were seven. Naomi and Misa would still do work for me.

### 
    
    
    * M I S A *

After all of our near-death experience, it was like 4:30 AM by the time we finally got a room. We were in Yokohama's shopping district, so it was a love hotel, which was good since they don't ask for ID. It was bad because I was freezing! The heater in here was terrible. I took a long, hot bath, and then I was wrapped up in all the blankets we had, with only my face poking out, like a bug in a cocoon. And I had the hot pack that came with the ice pack for Naomi's knee. And I was still freezing. And Naomi wasn't making it any better!

"How can you eat ice cream while you watch me die of hypothermia?" I asked her. "I can't even ask for a bite!"

She looked me right in the eyes. Right in the windows of my soul. And she opened her jaw as wide as she could. And she chomped down on her ice cream cookie Dreamsicle sandwich in slow motion with the most exaggerated "OOOMMMP" I'd ever heard.

"No fair teasing me!" I pouted, but I smiled. If she was teasing me she wasn't freaking herself out. And that was good! And I was gonna stay around for her to tease me. She was beautiful and smart and saved me from certain death and was out to save the world, she got to tease me all she wanted.

And she did come over and check on me. She didn't say anything but I could tell, she was concerned about my well-being. She wanted me to be safe and healthy and when I did something suicidally dangerous to be useful to her she was sad because she didn't want me to die. "I'm all right," I told her. "I'm chilly, that's all. I'll warm up soon." And that made her happy! I wiggled like a big caterpillar and flipped myself on the side. She sat down on the bed and unzipped the bag. We had about 30,000 yen after this, so we needed to know what to get tomorrow. 

"Okay. We have your gun. Two loaded clips. Like fifty or so other bullets." That thing was useful. I had no idea how it worked to get the cops to lay off, and didn't think I would ever understand. "And... the blank gun? You brought that? That's actually a good backup. I kind of want that to be my weapon." Ooh, then I had a really good idea. "Hey, I know a few things about practical effects from hanging out with Nori. What if we, like, we used special effects stuff to catch the Egawas? Little explosives and smoke and flash paper and makeup. Like what if we did up a squib vest and faked my death where they saw it?"

She pursed her lips. Looked thoughtful, like way more than when she was trying to find a word. Searching for something, then searching for its word. "Uh. Hmm... Eff-ecks."

"Aww... Is that a movie? That's a movie, isn't it?" She nodded slow. "DAMN it! Someone else has all my good ideas! I'll still show you what I know, but now I won't feel good about it." It was childish to care about that if it really was a good idea. But I was swaddled like a baby, therefore, I got to be childish. 

"Okay, anyway, keep going," I said. "I know we got a change of clothes... We're going to need more to hide our identities. It's suspicious if we both wear scarves, so, I should probably wear one to cover my face, and get you like a turtleneck. And some hair dye. I can conceal your facial scars, though, with what's in my purse." I did my own makeup back when I was starting out, when Dad was shopping me around to agencies and I wasn't big enough to warrant pro help. I learned a couple things. "And two cell phones. Are we sure Light can't track them?"

Naomi nodded. It was enough for me to just be told, I mean, until I got anxious again. But she also dug out the notepad and wrote for me. //1 TRACK = ALL TRK//

"One track equals all track. Once one person starts... no? It's why L can't do it. Oh. Because, if he makes it so HE can track it, then anybody can just do that thing he does, right?" She nodded, I got it! Talking to her made me feel really smart. We were a team! 

"Aaand, one box cutter, lightly used," I said as she kept unpacking. Box cutters were the self-defense weapon of choice because out of all the sharp things civilians were allowed to carry, they didn't shred up your pockets but you didn't have to fiddle with them to open them up. "Hey, can you break off the blade a couple notches so it doesn't have that cop's blood on it? We don't know if he had anything." Everyone had to back off if someone was bleeding on set. It was no fun, but, it was for the sake of safety I guess.

Naomi agreed, and she popped off a couple notches worth of the thin, scored blade. But she didn't quite know how easily the tip would snap off, so, she pushed too hard, and she ended up driving the new tip of the blade right into the meaty part of her palm, cutting a gash of a few centimeters. She hissed in pain and looked around for a bandage. A first aid kit! That would be a good thing to have for supplies. 

But I didn't say that. I just watched the dark red blood flowing out of the cut on her hand. Making two little streams on the way to her wrist, as she dug in my purse. And in my head I was all, MISA STOP IT MISA WHAT ARE YOU DOING, but I opened up the blankets... I was only in my underwear since I got out of the bath... and I sort of, I don't know, I like slithered over to her, and I took her arm in my frozen ice-wraith hands, and I... I licked it. I licked the blood off her hand.

MISA WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU OTHER PEOPLE'S BLOOD IS NOT OKAY TO LICK IT IS ONE THE TOP FIVE SUBSTANCES YOU SHOULD NOT LICK AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN ASK AND

And it felt really, really good. I was cold, so cold, I was dying of cold, and it filled me with warmth, not even like a fire but like a hearth, comfortable, it belonged here and I belonged here, like I was dead and it made me alive again. It was salty and metallic and heavy and wonderful and it tasted like the heart of someone who made the world okay.

And she was staring at me oh God she was staring at me.

"I think... you know... that blood is really romantic." MISA STOP DIGGING TELL HER IT WAS HYPOTHERMIA INDUCED CRAZINESS. "Because it's from your heart... it means you're alive... and if you share it with someone, it's sharing your life with them." Oh God why was I doing this why was I doing this why are you telling her you're into blood people's LIVES are on the line including YOURS and HERS and if she gets creeped out and squiggy in a fight she might DIE and then EVERYONE IN THE WORLD DIES!

"If... you know, if you were a vampire," I said, and I held her with my frozen hands and I was looking right into her soulful eyes and she wasn't even staring she was just happy to be seeing me. "If you were a vampire... your blood would be really powerful. Like a love potion. If you fed it to me, I'd be, I'd be, I'd be your thrall. Your slave." AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH ABORT MISA ABORT "You could drink as much blood as you wanted out of me, and, and it would be okay. Even if you took all of it. You could use me up. If you wanted. Like, like, like right now. It's not even my blood! It's, it's yours. I'm just holding it for you." STOP IT MISA STOP IT WHY ARE YOU DIGGING DEEPER WHY DON'T YOU KNOW HOW TO TURN THIS AROUND?

Everything coming out of my mouth was insane, I was a crazy person, but I couldn't STOP it was just pouring out of me and I couldn't put the cap back on! I didn't, I don't know, I thought about this stuff sometimes and it's not like I was repressing it, I just, I had all of these feelings before but I didn't really have them all at the same time, until, until I was holding Naomi's bleeding hand and looking into her eyes and all of this was just, it was, it was everything in the world! "If, if, if you were a vampire..." I said with my a voice cracking, "You could... I would be anyone you wanted me to be. And I would do anything you commanded." I fell face-first into her chest and I sobbed. I couldn't help it. She was looking at me the whole time, I was nearly naked, my makeup was gone, my whole body was ugly-shuddering and she never, she never looked disgusted. "Be-because you would tell me to be Misa Amane..." I blubbered, "And you'd command me to be happy-y-y-y-y!"

I grabbed her for all I was worth with my freezing hands. I never wanted to let her go. I was this terrible crazy person who needed someone to tell her who to be. And that someone stroked my hair. She held my head. She pointed me up to look into her eyes. She was smiling at me. She was happy. She saw who I was, the awful dark thing writhing in my soul, and she was smiling.

I took a step back. She got all our stuff back into the bag, got the bed clear. And she took off her jacket. I could see her arms and her scars. And she pulled off her tank top, and I could see her sports bra, and the scars that ran up her chest. And she was... My breath caught in my throat. She was out of her blue jeans, and I could see her legs, and they were powerful and athletic and all of her was written with lines of beautiful scars that said the world tried to kill her and she was still here and she was stronger than ever.

And she was holding out the box cutter. And her hand. She wanted my hand in hers. I was shivering as I held it up to her, and she held me by the wrist. No words. Didn't need them. She clicked the box cutter. I shivered. She was... I told her what was inside me, what made me tick, and she, and she wanted it. She knew what it meant to me and said yes. She wanted to share it. 

She nicked me at the base of the wrist. She was delicate, she was as precise as possible, but it still hurt when she pierced into my flesh, It hurt like, like everything hurt. I winced and gritted my teeth and tensed up at the sharp pain that radiated up my arm. A little blood started to trickle out, tickling me slightly as it crept down. Tears welled in my eyes. Because it had stopped hurting, everything had all stopped hurting. It felt so GOOD, it felt like such a relief, like some great awful painful pressure was being let out through my wrist, like I was holding by breath for a decade and finally exhaled. She watched it pool up in the little depression made by my wrist tendons. Swell over and start running down my arm in a forked stream of deep, deep crimson. I was totally, totally transfixed by it. And then she lapped it up. Ran her tongue up my arm like she was licking up ice cream running down the edge of her cone. And she sighed in satisfaction. She tasted the delicious essence that flowed through my heart, and it was good.

I don't think I was breathing. I didn't remember how. Her hands, her mouth, were so warm. I'd be dead without her warmth. I'd be a monster. She could have slurped all of my life away and I wouldn't have cared. But she didn't. Her lips rested on my bleeding wound for a moment so my heart could pump my blood right into her mouth. She looked up at me, and my blood was smeared on her lower lip. She smiled. She put her finger over the wound and held it down to staunch the bleeding.

She had drank her fill.

I closed my eyes. "I promise, Naomi, I will bleed as much as you want me to," I whispered to her, "and not one drop more."

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

With all of L's unlimited Illuminati money, I was kind of hoping for a holographic map display, but I suppose that was a bit childish. I unfurled a giant paper map onto the table in the center of the command room, and got out some markers. "All right, people. This is Isezakicho Shopping District. Closest thing Yokohama has to a red light district ever since they cleaned up Kogane-cho. Shopping for essentials, luxuries, entertainment, gambling, and sex. Here..." I circled a square building near the south west end of the main street. "Is the office it's run from. The Saikaiya Clan of yakuza. Everyone in Isezakicho pays them protection money, they bribe the local police, nobody really thinks a crime is being committed, so they still operate openly. Even Yotsuba pays them off." What they did was criminal, and it was disgusting, and it would buy them death. But their willingness to play nice and follow rules while doing it made them a lower priority than the violently impulsive sort of scum.

Ryuzaki piped up. "Since mid-April, however, they have come to wear masks while carrying out their business, and have made attempts to scrub records of their names from public access, where they exist." He clicked the little display remote, and brought up a picture taken from a second story window of three men in suits talking to a shop owner. All in paper masks and sunglasses.

"Based on Ryuzaki's analysis of the audio from Misa's tape, and what their objectives were at the time and the info they had access to, we believe Isamu's ambulance stopped somewhere in the district," I said. "One of the two of them was hurt badly and needed the assistance of a mob doctor." Mob doctors... I wasn't sure if I would let them live. Doctors do take an oath to first do no harm, and to aid all in need of treatment. But knowingly treating criminals means they are harming others, doesn't it? "The good news is that civilian cars aren't allowed in Isezakicho; they had to make it into their destination on foot, and they can't leave concealed in a vehicle without a great commotion. We do not believe that wherever he is has a secret exit tunnel or anything like that, that's not how the sewers are set up there." 

"Let me guess," said Aizawa. "The bad news is that cars aren't allowed in Isezakicho, so the streets are filled with pedestrians milling about, making any attempt at recovery or extraction a total disaster. We're investigating Kira AND the yakuza have paid their bribe money, so the police will double refuse to help us. An assault on the building he's in is completely impossible. Oh, and the doc doesn't have a clinic, he has an apartment or a hotel room or a warehouse, so we don't actually know where that building is."

"That's about the shape of it, Aizawa," I responded. "Now since the yakuza are wearing masks, Isamu won't be able to control them. Him and his wife aren't exactly intimidating combatants anyway, and if they started pulling masks off, they'd be bludgeoned to death with bicycle frames before they could effectively use Kira's power. But we believe Misa and Naomi are chasing them for some piece of Kira's power, and it may be the power to see names by seeing faces. If so, every civilian shopper on that street could become a danger." It wasn't an object to steal, but for all I know, Isamu got desperate when his wife got shot and he made the eye trade. 

"Bringing us to the second point," said Ryuzaki, "Misa and Naomi are also somewhere in Isezakicho. They want something from Isamu. They have, between them, Kira's power and an untraceable gun. Which is why nobody can show their faces in Isezakicho."

"Which is why none of us can get down there and get eyewitness testimony," said Mogi. "Other than 'why are you wearing a mask that's weird'."

"I... I might have a way around that," I said. "Misa gave an interview to a paparazzo. That paparazzo sells it as an exclusive to NHN. That paparazzo saw where Naomi and Misa got out of his car, but the area is not announced, or crawling with cops."

"It's part of the exclusive. They know a huge story is going to happen there, and they want to be the only ones who have it," Aiber said. "Scummy."

"Which means they will have a reporter on the scene, doing something else. A fluff human interest story. Something to justify being there all day for when the battle breaks out," I said. "Wedy should be able to find and wiretap a news van pretty easily." I started marking Xes on the outsides of the map. "Now, these places are all potential sniper nests for Watari. This street and this street are the only places they can get to if they do get a vehicle, so we need to funnel them in one direction to ensure coverage. We may be able to block one with the news van, hopefully... the north one. The south street gives them fewer options." Streets in Japan didn't have names. It really bothered foreigners, and now I was starting to see why.

"I have many applicable skills, mister Yagami," Watari said with a bow. "Please don't think I am merely a marksman."

"Believe me, Watari, I'm aware," I told him. And it was true. "Unfortunately, nobody else can eviscerate the engine block of a speeding car like you." That guy was incredibly useful -- I could hardly believe I was going to kill Ryuzaki without killing him. I needed to make sure he was safe. 

A lowercase //w// in Gothic font appeared on the view screen, and Wedy's voice chimed in. "Ryuzaki, or Light, or, whoever. We got a bit of a good news bad news situation. Good news is I wired the news van. Since someone was IN it, I couldn't get them to change the proxy server and actually send it to you, but that part's easy for a con man. The bad news is I cannot surveil this place. The people who do have cameras don't have them networked to anything. The ones that are networked, the connection is down. To leave my own wireless cameras I need to be jumping from roof to roof in broad daylight in a motorcycle helmet, which is literally the most suspicious possible thing to do without a dynamite vest. I do infiltration and bugging, I can't remake British CCTV."

Fair enough, really. "All right. Stay on standby. Aiber, you're up."

Aiber slid over to the console, preparing to get in character and get the news van to -- where did that pina colada come from?

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

Out of all of the insane, life-threatening things that happened last night, during any one of them I never would have guessed the one that emotionally affected me the most would be 'Misa wants me to have her blood.'

Misa came back from her first errand with little difficulty. "Remember how Hugh Jackman got fifth place in a Hugh Jackman lookalike contest? I just told the guy at the counter I needed hair dye because after last night, pretending to be Misa Amane for my clients was gonna be more trouble than it was worth." She held up a puffy winter jacket, complete with hood. "And I got you your disguise too. It's really chilly out there, so this will work. Some caffeine pills too. Because I fell asleep before you and I did not get nearly enough sleep."

Misa proclaimed all her blood was mine. She was just holding it for me, like a friend's bag of weed. I don't think Raye ever said anything that romantic to me, because that was just on a completely different, uncharted axis of romantic. I never said that much to him. I said I loved him, I loved spending time with him, he made me laugh, he made me feel special. Never ceded ownership of my life's essence. I mean, I said he had my heart, but that was a metaphor. Was it?

So next we dyed our hair in the sink. Misa and I became bluenette, so we looked related, like sisters. It was the first time I tried out bluenette since my chuunibyou days when I put powdered drink mix in the shower head and made the whole bathroom smell like island punch. It came out a lot more even and convincing this time.

What was I going to do, not lick it? It was important to her. Not that, not that I was just humoring her. I think I liked it. It was new and interesting, at least. Tasted like a 10-yen coin. I never exactly went looking for change to suck on, but I didn't spit it out in revulsion if some got in my mouth. It was... like I said, interesting. Tangy metal. Not something often experienced elsewhere.

After that I did my makeup. First time this year, actually. Considering I cry out of frustration or fruitless desire for vengeance an average of four times a day, it's never been really a good investment. I can't really say 'Today, I'm going to draw upon all my will to not cry once!'. I have brain damage, that's not how that works. But none of the investigation has ever seen me with makeup on, and, well, I'm going to skip everything around my eyes... and in a direct line below them. Just give my cheeks some color, conceal the scar here, put some lipstick over the scar there. Blood-red lipstick. Of course. That's just a good name for a color. 

That's not even the weightiest part. It could have been just a weird thing. If we were lovers, well, that would be a little experiment in the bedroom, and experiments can succeed or fail, and maybe we'd try it again when we weren't worried about decapitation via sniper rifle. No. The part that was heavy was what came next. "I will bleed as much as you want me to, and not one drop more." Which... it only made sense, right? It was my blood after all, it belonged to me. She was promising to be a good, careful custodian of my property. Not throwing it away needlessly. Pumping it really, really well with her heart. Into her cheeks, blushing when I looked at her. She was, she was showing off the goods. 

There was a wide selection of shops here in Isezakicho, to pick up supplies with, like flashlights, a portable first aid kit, and some scalpels to put in it. Heck, there was even a magic shop -- good if you needed things to start fires, for example, or smoke pellets. It just wasn't safe to keep chasing last night, so we didn't know this morning if we were tracing a trail, or laying a siege. We stuck to the sides of the street, keeping out of the easy sight lines for Watari's sniper scope. Crossed only with groups of people. We narrowed down the possible areas he could have been, based on where the ambulance dumped him, and then we got lucky. There were a few levels of apartments above the charming little Hamburger America Hamburger, as there were above most of the one- and two-story businesses... and Rem's bony back-spikes were clipping through the shaded window of one of them. Tiny little apartments, not enough for a god of death to stand comfortably in. Or maybe the shade didn't block enough light, and he ordered Rem to stand in the way of the sun, while he slept off the painkillers. The doc wouldn't want him to move yet.

If her blood was mine, it was her responsibility to keep it safe. Not to throw it away. And if her life was mine, it had value to me, and she knew that. If Light Yagami had asked her to, she probably would have gouged open her neck and bled to death. If he had the means to suck out her soul, she would have told him to throw it away if he wanted. But me? She was willing to give me her blood, exactly as much as I wanted of it, and not to waste a drop. If I had the means to suck out her soul, she would ask me to please keep it safe for her, to take better care of it than she could. Does that mean she loved me more than she had loved him?

Hamburger America Hamburger's building lied on a corner. There was an L-shaped alley, with the fire escape and some vending machines on one side that lead into the main street of Isezakicho, and an entry blocked by a moving truck on the other that led to the side street. Nobody was attending to the truck, and Misa slashing all four tires would result in a significant delay in that truck unblocking the path when someone did get back to it. The cross street (I wish they named streets around here, it has bothered me ever since I moved to America) did not extend over to the next street -- it ended at a soapland. The good news is that this meant if Isamu wanted out, he had no other option but to get on Isezakicho's main street. Considering how closely Rem leashed to him, it'd be impossible to hide. 

It's not like I freaked out last night. It felt natural and beautiful last night that she would share this with me, and I shared my warmth with her. Even though vampires are supposed to be colder than humans and not the other way around, and vampires aren't supposed to love garlic, well, she didn't mind. And it's not like this is the most important thing happening! There's a non-zero chance I get my head blown off by a sniper because of Light Yagami's machinations, and then it's not going to matter if I'm straight, or I'm bisexual, or I'm straight with one exception, or somehow I've actually been a lesbian the whole time and just unbelievably bad at it. And it's not going to matter if I know how to find women sexually attractive or I only had an idea of a general aesthetic. Raye told me he had no idea what an attractive man even looked like, so, I would make a point of it to tell him how good he looked.

One of us had to keep eyes on that intersection at all times. I had more trouble walking without a crutch, so it was me. I took a table outside a little cafe, ordered some tea and an orange scone, and waited. Under an awning, where Watari couldn't see me if he was looking up and down the street. Maybe he was using a thermal scope, but then he'd have no idea it was me. I had a clear view of the apartment entry, the door to Hamburger America Hamburger, and the alley exit as long as I never looked down at my newspaper. I never did. Rem shifted in place occasionally -- did gods of death get restless legs? -- and at one point turned around, jamming her face through the window to look out on the street. I have no idea if she saw or recognized me. Her face was hard to read from that distance. If she did, well, not much I could do about it.

Misa was pretty. Really pretty. It was her job, and she took pride in how good she was at it. I'm not sure that was all of it, though. She had all kind of stalkers who became obsessed with the idea of her weakness and vulnerability, but, that wasn't it either. I can say when she was at her most beautiful: last night, when she promised her blood to me. And when she joined the investigation, and she proudly proclaimed that Kira needed to be prevented from making mistakes, and she would be a part of that. She wasn't dragged into that. She still believed in the world's most odious killer, at that point. But she was on the road to being better, of her own volition. She joined of her own accord to make the world make sense again. She was pretty for her job. She was a vulnerable person I felt good about protecting. But she was beautiful when she was doing what I respected, what I wished of myself, rather than languishing in despair. 

Misa never got too far from me on her supply run, and we left our phones connected so she could start jamming the star key to indicate distress. A frontal assault was not a good plan right now. We knew what room Isamu was in, but if we got high enough to shoot through the window, Rem would block the bullets again. He had to be threatened from two angles, or one Rem couldn't see. And there were only two of us, not a full SWAT team. On top of that, there were an unhealthy amount of men in casual suits wearing filter masks and sunglasses going in without coming out. Yakuza, even when they hide their faces they don't hide their nature. Yotsuba undoubtedly paid these guys off -- everyone in the district did -- and if Isamu used any connections to get here, they'd want to know what was up.

Misa's will and drive and conviction, that part of her could lead to great good or great evil. She was terrified of the evil she could do. And yet she never flopped around her parents' place for weeks wondering if it was really right to do anything. She didn't quit the investigation when it got hard and it made her doubt herself and her abilities. She didn't surrender her essence to me so she could give up. 'Here's my blood. Here's my soul. I trust you more than I trust myself, make sure I'm not evil.' Except for the last part, that was me with Raye, wasn't it? I had to trust him because I couldn't trust myself. That's probably how Light killed me: got me to trust him because I doubted myself. That doesn't make my relationship with Raye wrong, nor does it with Misa.

Misa came back with her haul. She took a seat at my table and ordered a bottled water. Showed me the goods. And she waited while I thought. 

It's a stakeout, really. I'd been on a stakeout all morning. She was joining me on the stakeout. That was so, so far from the most important thing to happen. The guy in there has the power to kill all but four people on the planet with a name and a face. Naomi. Naomi. Stop worrying about if you want to kiss her for the right reasons. Work that out later. The recriminating ghost of Raye that lived in my skull would even agree to that.

Misa had to have had the same thought I did. We still had the top margin of the death paper. We knew how it worked. We could write in //ISAMU EGAWA AND NABIKI EGAWA. HEART ATTACK. WALK OUTSIDE, SURRENDER, REVEAL EVERYTHING THEY DID AS KIRA, AND THEN KEEL OVER OF HEART ATTACKS.// But maybe that wouldn't work, it's not related enough to the proximate cause of death. //ISAMU EGAWA AND NABIKI EGAWA. FALLING. ACCIDENTALLY FALL OUT OF FOURTH STORY WINDOW, BREAKING THEIR NECKS.// probably would. There were three reasons I wouldn't. 

They could be immune. Once they knew it was a possibility, they would do everything they could to get immunity. Nabiki couldn't induce clinical death without losing the baby, but for all I know, she got her face cut off and now she looked like Nicholas Cage.

Second, it was wrong. Forcing someone to override their will was an awful violation. Forcing them to confess would be despicable, and I would deserve death no matter how evil they are. Nabiki may be willing to do anything, and that's why she has to be stopped, that's not a license to sink as low as her. She already had at least one and probably three people in there being violated. I won't add to that number. Killing them via heart attack would be fine, we'd shot at each other by now, but even making them jump out a window was over the line to me. And if they died of heart attack, they'd be lying in a building I can't assault, with death paper flopping out of their hands where yakuza can get to it. 

Third, it was wrong for a different reason. Misa made me promise. I would not let her become the second Kira again. The odds that death paper accepted 'telegraphed speech' were low, and I very well might time out before writing the circumstance. Misa would have to do it for me. If Misa used the death paper to commit murder, she was Kira again. She was terrified of that. It was my responsibility to not let that happen. I swore I would not let her do evil with that.

She knows she was the second Kira but doesn't remember it. When we met she would have been happy to be the second Kira, and believed it just to be circumstance that she wasn't. That was April Misa. And now, she was different. She felt sorry for me, she felt pain after tangibly experiencing the pain and lasting disability Kira inflicted on me. But it wasn't just that. I showed her kindness. I showed her respect. I was someone she could look up to who wasn't Kira. I was someone who wanted the world and her to be better. Who had control over her and didn't use it to terrorize her. Someone who would feed her my vampire blood, just so nobody else could tell her to be someone else. I don't know to say if she's changed so much, or not really at all. Is she the same person? If she is, she still wants that same person to work to better ends. 

I couldn't trust myself. But Misa trusted me. Misa trusted me with everything. 

Okay. Stakeout. Analyze the relevant factors. What do we all have here? If Kira's power is written on death paper, there can't just be a version that only requires a face, because you can't write a face (or at least not nearly as easily) and I don't think Misa is that good at photorealistic sketches. There has to be a Kirascope of some kind that just shows you the name you need to write. Isamu was in as desperate a situation as he could be in last night, with his lung collapsing and spewing blood into his torso, surrounded by police officers whose name tags he couldn't see. But he only used his paper to control the one in the same room, whose name placard he could see. He could have gotten out much easier if he controlled the patrol cops, so it's safe to assume that the Kirascope is not accessible to him. The yakuza are masked up and won't give their names, and the Egawas can't fight off anyone on their own. When I checked the entrance to the apartments, they had no names listed, probably for fear of Kiras. The name tags at Hamburger America Hamburger are phony American names. Isamu can look out onto the street, but A: if he does I will shoot him and at the very least leave him shredded by broken glass and B: he has no idea what anyone's names are. 

So Isamu has access to at least one cop and up to two paramedics, but his only other nearby controllable targets are people on his floor. He has to work with people right now, not command them. He also had a sucking chest wound and a full or partial lung collapse. Any movement or activity is going to be against medical advice and involve him falling to the ground and screaming in pain. If the mob doc doesn't have a wheelchair, he's in a wheeled office chair. He can't jump off the roof unless he has a helicopter and those are real conspicuous. That delivery truck is blocking the other way out of the alley, and it's going to be there for a while. His exits are limited to that elevator in the alley, the fire escape next to it, and the main stairs at the front, next to the restaurant.

He wasn't going to give away his death paper to anyone but his wife. Him and his wife split up before, but that was going to be impossible now. Organized crime was involved, and the moment Nabiki left Isamu's line of sight, she'd become a hostage to ensure his cooperation. Isamu would have to be an idiot not to know that, and if he was an idiot, we'd be able to recognize Nabiki from afar because she's the only pregnant woman flanked by two masked goons. The yakuza's loyalty wasn't, unless something incredibly unusual happened, supernaturally compelled, so they would go after their own interests. 

So why stake out at all instead of rushing in there? I would love to. There are probably between six and ten yakuza in there, in extremely close quarters, and I would estimate a maximum of two handguns between them. It wouldn't be safe by any means, but I'm confident that none of these guys know how to fight by anything but overwhelming numbers, we had bulletproof vests, and the stakes couldn't be higher, so it'd be worth a shot. Two problems. The first is Light. If I create a commotion, if I take out or incapacitate Isamu and Nabiki, I've made my position. Watari blows my head off and Light recaptures Misa to make her a Kirascope or something. The second is Rem. Rem likes Misa and doesn't give two shits for me. If I get close, Rem is going to try to grab me and incapacitate me for Isamu to slit my throat. I could see her now, so my best odds were somewhere that I had as much freedom of movement as possible. If I shoot, Rem stands in front of the bullets. Isamu had to be attacked from two opposite angles, and a cramped apartment building was a real bad place to do that. 

What does he want? He wants to recuperate from his bullet injury, which requires him not moving. He wants people with known names and faces near him to do his bidding and die. Every person who walked onto the fourth floor was another resource and potential horrific violation. I needed him to walk into the street where he can be shot by surprise and have his shit taken from him before Light's people know what is going on. I needed to remove his freedom of movement and association as much as possible.

A strip of paper -- say, the dimensions of a single lined section of notebook paper that had once been a caterpillar -- taped to the back side of the door handles for the apartments and the restaurant would ensure every single person who opened either door and wasn't wearing gloves would touch the death paper and be able to see Rem. The longer he waited, the more people would be able to see the spectre of Death following him, the more of a problem he would have trying to rope anyone in, the more problem he would have moving without a huge commotion inhibiting him, and the less problem anyone else would have when I shot him.

The next step would require some help, but was very doable. After that, it was just a stakeout. Me and Misa. On a stakeout.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

Isamu comes to with a groan of pain, laying on a tiny couch in a side room, his face and chest covered in bandages. In his mouth is a tube to a modified CPAP machine serving as a ventilator. The moment he awakens, his wife is hugging him, joyous at his recovery.

"Don't squeeze..." is all he can choke out, but she realizes her error, and backs off. He grimaces and looks up at her. He can feel he's on painkillers, and they aren't enough. "Are we... Any good news?"

"We made it to the Saikaya," Nabiki says. "You got out of surgery fine, the doctor said your lung only partially collapsed, and you should make a full recovery. Rem didn't see your new face before I bandaged it. The doc also said your face should be fixable. Our daughter is doing fine. We've got the shotgun and seven more shells. The yakuza have been nice enough, and got me some new clothes. I'm in hooker boots, but my feet are warm."

Isamu nods. "Bad news?" He goes back to letting the machine breathe for him. It hurts less.

"Literally everything else," Nabiki says. "We're trapped in this shitty apartment. The gunslinger girls can't assault the building but if we walk out those doors it's going to be the beaches of Normandy. Kira has no way to contact us. The boss doesn't know why we're here and is thinking of kicking us out if he doesn't get an explanation soon. Because the boss is in the kitchen right now with like seven dudes. There's no secret tunnel exits. All of the mobsters wear masks and can beat both of us in a fight. The only pedestrian name we know is Misa Amane. Oh, and the Death Note is ruined." She holds up the scorched and drenched notebook. "You stopped it from burning up and killing us, so I am not criticizing your decision. But the pages are all fused together into a clump of goo. It's way wetter than it should be, somehow, it soaked up every drop of water in the cooler. Probably because of the deal where you can flip through an infinite number of pages. But you can't do that when you can't flip any pages. I asked Rem if there's a way to reset it, and she's not hiding the answer, she genuinely doesn't know. We're down to my emergency page, the half-done Eba forgery, and the six bagged pages we printed off."

"We're going to have to cut the block of paper out with an X-acto knife," he says with a groan. "If tearing pages out doesn't count as destroying it we should be fine. I would guess the spine is what counts. Maybe we can thread the other seven sheets back in to the spine, and they'll be enough to flip through so the notebook starts generating more. Now, help me up..." He practically whinnies in pain as he tries to stand. "OH GOD okay no no no forget that. Get... Get me a wheelchair. We have to see the boss."

She looks down at him and licks her lips. "God I love it when you take charge like that. You're gonna get us out of this, baby."

They don't have a wheelchair. They have an office chair. The main room of this lousy apartment has become the impromptu meeting chamber for the Chairman, wearing a cool-looking kabuki mask, and the two rows of men flanking him and barring the door, in their sunglasses and breather masks.

"Mister Egawa!" says the Chairman. "To what do we owe the pleasure?" 

Isamu Egawa has a chemical-burned face wrapped in gauze and is being pushed in a chair. He displays no weakness. He looks around the room. "I noticed your men are wearing masks. Your competitors don't have to wear masks. I'm guessing you may have a Kira-related problem, Chairman..."

"Just 'Chairman' will be fine, thank you," says the intimidating man on the couch. "But you have answered my question with another. I asked you, 'to what do we owe the pleasure?'"

The Egawas recall all too well how they had to be bailed out by their shinigami to avoid a humiliating ass-beating from a single woman. Their pet lieutenant is outside, forced away from the action. Should things go south here, the Egawas will be savagely beaten, their teeth will be yanked out from their living or dead bodies to be smashed into dust, and they will be tossed in the back of an old automobile that is set on fire and pushed off a cliff. Isamu has a tube breathe for him as the Chairman speaks. He is steady as a rock, as is his wife.

"I ask because our situations may be linked," Isamu says. "I was shot by someone the police refused to prosecute, because they informed me that her actions were not a crime. I could not go to a hospital, because she would most assuredly pursue me. I needed assistance outside formal channels, and your dealings with my company have always been completely equitable. As you have assisted me, I now seek to assist you. You had a problem that led you to wear the masks, didn't you?"

The Chairman's face is unreadable, he has a mask, but his posture suggests dawning comprehension. "Two problems, as it were. First, in April. A young man acquired a gun and believed himself to be the heart of justice. He opened fire on an innocuous oicho-kabu game and killed two of my men. The police informed us... this was not a crime, and could not be prosecuted. We were forced to dispose of him and his weapon ourselves. It caused us to conclude that the police were leaving us for Kira to clean up. It was only prudent to take preventative measures."

Isamu takes another hit of mechanized breathing. He can talk, but it hurts, not that he would slow down or admit vulnerability. "And then you had a second problem. Much more recent."

"A client at one of our health clinics," says the Chairman. "Was assassinated by a jealous wife, who blamed him for her injury, and played for him a tape of some English phone conversation. Details were sketchy and self-contradictory, as the masseuses did not remain to be debriefed. Though the client was an important government official, again the police informed us that what had happened was not a crime and would not be prosecuted or investigated. It seemed anyone we touched would be abandoned to Kira's tender mercies."

Isamu's smile is visible through his bandages, around his ventilator. "A scarred woman with black hair and grey eyes, walking with a crutch, wielding a pistol left-handed, who is almost entirely unable to speak?" He steeples his fingers in front of his face. "I regret to inform you that she is your problem, and I have led this problem back to your doorstep. I am pleased to inform you that you have not been left for Kira to slay at all. I am Kira's agent. He told me to get in contact with you. Those cryptic messages you got from someone about how the light of the new world must still cast shadows? Unfortunately, I figured I would have more time to pay that off."

Yakuza thugs who stand around someone in a full or partial ring are permitted to laugh, and laugh menacingly, and look threatening, and look impassive. Gasping in shock is not really part of the job description, but when everyone does it it's hard to single anyone out for punishment.

"This is a bold claim," the Chairman says. Nobody can see if his eyes went wide. "Why would Kira wish to contact us? And, if so, why would we believe you to be his agent?"

Isamu need only reel the man in. "Because Kira recognizes the services you provide to society and your place in it. True, the nature of your work will change in many ways. But most of your so-called 'illegal' work harms no one and provides valuable services to a population that harms none but themselves. I vouched personally for your trustworthiness to Kira: When you cut shoplifting in half and offer refunds when an incident does occur? That isn't a criminal protection racket, that's a private security firm doing a better job than the police." That takes a bit out of him, lying so hard. People like this don't get to live in the world his child will occupy. He needs the tube to breathe for him for a second. "I need your help to evade Kira's enemies. Kira and I would be most grateful for the help, and would remember the proof of your honor. As to the proof I am his agent... the only way to do that is to kill someone." He doesn't stop for a dramatic pause. He's got to keep reeling in, act like this is normal. "To have Kira kill someone I need to know their name and be looking at their face. Killing world leaders or public figures is obviously out, as that causes instability. I would prefer to kill someone that we would have immediate feedback on, that the investigator L would be unaware of, as he gains information from each killing."

Isamu doesn't say what he is thinking. He lets the Chairman think. Lets the Chairman come up with it on his own. The apartment is small, and he did not only bring the most well-vetted men with him. Someone whose name is known, whose face Isamu can see. 

"Koji." the chairman says. A man on the left staggers back. "Koji Nishitani. We know you've been skimming off the top. We know you've been talking to Osaka about a foothold here. Boys, take off his mask."

"What!?" Koji protests. "You can't be serious! I never did anything, and, and this guy, how do you even know he's with Kira?" He struggles in the grip of the two men flanking him, but he can't escape. He tries to avert his gaze and hide his face. He is terrified.

"I don't," says the chairman. "If he is with Kira, you die for betraying the clan. If he's not, then clearly it's some kind of sign, Kira has spared you, and all of your misdeeds are forgiven, if you change your ways. You'll even get to execute our friend here."

Koji is not calmed by this. 

"All right," Isamu says, writing onto a piece of plain notebook paper, folded over to hide the partial entry that took Misa hostage. "Hello, //KOJI NISHITANI//. And... goodbye, Koji Nishitani." He caps his pen with a flourish. 

Koji looks around, wincing. "Is... I'm alive?"

"It usually takes about a minute," Isamu says. He has to play up that Kira does this and not the paper. Kira, a mystery, not an object whose properties are known.

For thirty-five seconds there is no discussion. No sound. Every yakuza is looking at Koji. The Egawas confidently look at the chairman.

"I don't... I feel... I think I'm fi---HHHHNNNNNGGGG!" Koji exclaims, and grabs at his chest. He falls to the floor, gasping and twitching, tearing open his shirt and clawing bloody lines into his flesh. His legs pump uselessly. He stares at the masked audience for sympathy, for compassion, and finds nothing. He stares at the Egawas. They feel nothing. His eyes roll back in his head as flecks of foam accumulate at the corners of his mouth. His pulse is inert. He has stopped breathing. And his brain activity has ceased. He is dead.

Over the next few hours, his tissue will accumulate ischemic injury from the lack of oxygenation. After three minutes of no oxygen at room temperature, his brain cells will begin a process that will cause them to damage themselves if oxygenation returns. Drugs can bring that time up to 20 minutes. Longer than that, he could be theoretically revived, with brain damage. Much longer than 30 minutes, his spinal cord risks injury -- he could be revived, but brain-damaged and paralyzed. The tissues of his arms and legs won't start dying until at least six hours in, but he could still be a vegetable, mindless and motionless but living. Every cell in his body won't die for probably 12 hours. The colder his body is, the more those time scales extend. Nobody is dead until they are warm and dead.

That's an awful long and uncertain time for the Death Note to peg its effect to, just to ensure someone stays dead. Koji's heart was damaged to send him into cardiac arrest, and it won't beat again, and nobody will provide him aid.

The chairman has a mask to hide the shocked look on his face. "You... appear to be telling the truth." he says. "But you are clearly not all-powerful or all-knowing. What would stop someone from... taking that paper from you and using it as you have demonstrated?"

"None of you made a pact with Kira," Isamu says with confidence. "You can try it if you want, but it won't work." Nabiki wheels him closer to the couch. "I'd recommend you wear gloves, though. Anyone who touches the paper will die if the book it came from is destroyed, which is why my wife and I must be very careful to protect it." Isamu believes this is true, but also believes that Rem would be inconvenient to explain. "Once you see it only works for me, I hope that you will agree to help us escape and hide."

"Hmm." says the chairman as he slips into a pair of fingerprint-concealing gloves and takes the offered piece. "Who should I test it on? If you are so certain only you can use it, then... you wouldn't mind if I wrote down your lovely wife's name, would you?"

They need immediate feedback. The ability is tied to seeing the face rather than remembering the face. The member of his gang he is most willing to kill is already dead. His attention brought to Nabiki. The chairman isn't hooked now, he's flopping around in the boat. "Of course, sir," she says. "Here's my driver's license so you know it's my real name."

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

Wonder of wonders. Ryuzaki's phone started ringing. He instantly sent it through the main display so we could all hear; the visual was a red //M// in that Gothic font he uses. It took a minute in Photoshop, but when did he spend the minute?

"Ryuzaki!" came Misa's voice on the other end. "Thanks for picking up. Is Light listening?"

"Of course not, Misa," he said while looking right at me.

"What was the point of lying to me?" she snapped. "Your voice is echoing, like your mike is too close to a speaker. You're playing me for a whole room but I'm not on speakerphone. Don't treat me like I'm stupid!" I could envision her pouting on the other end. She could be quick about things in her area of expertise. "Look, we're calling about the Egawas. They have a bunch of gangsters with them right now so it's too dangerous to take them on, right? And if we tell you where it is or we go in there anyway then Light, WHO WE KNOW IS KIRA, is going to just have us killed while we're fighting. So we can't work together but we can't do it alone. So, like, the Internet is out around here? And everyone's credit cards are taking way more time to process? If that wasn't you guys, then you should make sure it doesn't go back up. So he can't look up people on the Internet. Sound good?"

"That was us," Ryuzaki told her. "It is in both of our interests to maintain the outage." I was already texting Wedy to tell her to find where the two were. 

"Right! That was what Naomi thought. It's a good idea, so you'd have it too. But, about the Egawas..." she said. "The gangsters running around all have masks on, probably because of Kira. So Isamu and Nabiki can't do anything to them. But we think they used Kira power on a cop and some paramedics to get out of the police station. Isamu does the Kira thing by writing it on special sheets of paper. So if you find his stash, then you HAVE to find when he said those people will die, and you have to make sure you can get them back."

Ryuzaki sighed ever so slightly. "Misa. That's dangerous. Reviving someone from clinical death isn't reliable, even if we know what is coming, there is a chance --"

"IT'S BETTER THAN NOTHING!" she barked. "If we leave them alone they die the normal way, and if Naomi and me grab them and lock them in an empty broom closet they just die of heart attacks. You need to use your super doctor guys if you get the information. If we find the paper ourselves I'm gonna call you up and tell you what's on it. Okay? Promise me that if I find out when and how they are supposed to die, you are gonna do something about it. Promise."

"I don't see why it's--"

"Naomi. Is. Not. Going. To. Watch. That. Happen. Again. That means I'm not either. Not without making sure we do something about it." Misa's voice was full of absolute conviction. "If I am Kira then you want this to happen and if I'm not Kira you want this to happen. It's good either way. Promise."

Ryuzaki just stared ahead for a second. "I... promise." He put his hand over the receiver, and indeed, he said "Aiber, get the medics on standby. Tell them to provide means of self-drowning and low-caliber guns, at least."

"Okay, good. So I guess we'll see you when someone decides to make an attack," she said briskly.

"Good. We will."

"Fine!"

"Fine."

"Great!"

"Great."

"Stupendous!"

"Stupendous." 

Finally, Misa hung up with an exasperated grunt. Not nearly enough time for Wedy to make them. But I had an idea. "Ryuzaki. Does your voice scrambler have any other settings? I want something a bit more menacing," I said as I motioned for the receiver.

"Why?"

"Because if Isamu has a cop under his control," I told him, "then he needs to think he can't rely on any help the police can provide. And to get him to realize that, he has to think it's his idea. And to think it's his idea, I need to say a lot of other threatening things to him so he doesn't know what I'm calling his attention to." Ryuzaki smiled and pitch-shifted me down a bit. Sakura TV's electronic security was terrible, and we had the phone number they were sitting on that called into the Kira show last night.

Not only were they sitting on that number, they were bringing the show back, as "Kira's Kingdom", five nights a week. This might be an appropriate level of reverence, but it was certainly too early. I'm not God yet, people.

I punched in the digits as fast as I could. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring... "Hello!" chirped a sunny voice. "You've reached the phone of Isamu Egawa. This is his wife Nabiki, may I tell him who is calling?" The woman sounded like the perfect yamato nadeshiko if ever there was one.

"Put Isamu on." Wow, this voice sounded way more demonic than I was expecting. "It's urgent."

"My husband is resting," she said with a hint of iron behind her voice. "Anything you can say to Isamu you can say to me, mister spooky scrambled voice."

"Your husband is Kira. This is not a surprise to you because you're still cooperating in his crimes," I said. "I am L. My resources are vast, my reach is infinite, and my people are going to bring you in."

"Oh? Well, that sounds impressive, mister L," she said dismissively. "But I'm standing next to a window right now and you didn't try to impress me by telling me what I was wearing or eating. So I know at least you don't know where we are at the moment. And if you don't know that, you don't know what and who we have, either." A click of a door being locked. "So why should I believe you're going to come and get us, mister L?"

"Because you already met Agent Pandora twice before and you barely escaped with your lives." I looked over to Ryuzaki, who gave a slight nod of approval. Maybe he was wishing he used edgy-sounding code names for reasons other than playing a part. It would be like him. There was a bit of chuunibyou in him. "She is a merciless hunter who isn't going to stop until you're brought in dead or alive. Your husband tried to broker a deal with the NPA to keep them from investigating Kira. Agent Pandora made sure the man on the other end of that deal never saw another sunrise. And then I ensured she walked out of jail before she saw her next one." Ooh, this L character I've created, sounds very proud of the accomplishments of his codenamed agents!

Nabiki paused. I could hear hissing in the background, air rushing in and out of a machine. "My husband didn't broker that deal. I did. And you're the one who got her out of jail. The mute lady. The one who was Misa Amane's bodyguard."

Why wouldn't she think we were on the same side? "She's not mute. She has a condition. It's known as..." God damn it, why was that so hard to remember? "...Expressive aphasia. she does not need to speak to carry out her work. And yes. I have ensured her actions will not face legal consequences. You have no idea how deep my influence with the police goes. The leadership may not actively seek Kira, but you cannot rely on all of the police being cowards. It does not take long for word to reach one of my allies that their aid is required." Oh, that line I threw in as an intimidating aside, it couldn't possibly be the entire point of my call! "You may have some unusual capabilities. But I feel compelled to point out that when you were aided by a completely unknown spectre, and the power of Kira, your husband only managed to get away after having been shot, set on fire, and rendered homeless. How well is she going to do next time she finds you?" It felt weird to be shilling her capabilities like this. There was clearly nothing special about her, the Egawas were simply incompetent.

"It's very rude to call someone merely to gloat," Nabiki said. "If you would like to extol the proficiency of your agents, I can walk away and pick up when you're done."

"I'm calling because I know you aren't the big fish," I snapped. "You received Kira's power late in the game. And it creates a record of every single kill you perform. I don't care about incriminating evidence. But if you were to surrender and hand that record over to Misa Amane, that would be the difference between life and death. Your victims deserve closure, don't they?"

"Oh, a very generous offer. I'm afraid I must decline, though. I simply don't have a gift for you to reciprocate."

"Kira may have told you you were paragons of virtues. You may realize that you're nothing but criminals," I said. If I tried to make my voice intimidating, it would probably end up indecipherable. "I don't care either way. I care about ending the threat. If you preserve the records, then you become my ally in ending this threat. If you don't, then Pandora is going to force you to your knees, order you to beg for your life, and then shoot you in the forehead."

"A lovely story, but I really must attend to my husband," she said dismissively, and hung up.

"Oh no," Ryuzaki deadpanned. "I believe that in his boastfulness, L let slip that attempts to manipulate the police would help him. What a breach of security."

"And if she takes the threat seriously and hands over the paper, well, that's a bonus," I added.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

Nabiki hangs up in disgust. "That was L, if you didn't figure it out," she says. "Boorish, disagreeable fellow. Said he makes it so that woman never goes to jail, and he wants our archived Death Note paper with all our kills."

"If we know he wants it," Isamu says, "we can hold it for ransom. If we get it in serviceable condition." 

"And it might be a bad idea to call on our friend's police contacts. Apparently he has people let him know," Nabiki says. "Whoever Kira's man on the inside is, he didn't give me any kind of message this time." She looks up at Rem. She has no reason to mention the phrase 'paragons of virtues', nor does Rem ever have reason to mention or remember the name of the warlock Remryuk's guild.

### 
    
    
    * M I S A *

"Hey, listen. About last night..." I finally said. We'd been here for hours. Watching the doors, watching people enter and leave. Watching a couple at a time look up and get confused about the spines or the back or the foot clipping through the wall, but figuring it's just an ad or art installation or something else not their business. It was nice to just spend time with her, but the awkwardness was building up.

"I wanted to say I was really sorry. I... I should have attacked Nabiki, and I didn't, and then you could have been hurt," I told her. "I didn't want..." That wasn't true. "I actually, I thought it would be really easy to cut her. But then I was like 'is that what the Second Kira thought too?' and I didn't know. So I hesitated."

She looked at me and she gave me a little reassuring smile. "Ah. Good." That could really mean it was positive, or that it was acceptable. So she thought a bit more and she said "Hmm... Ah, hostage."

"Right. She was a hostage." Man, was I glad nobody was at the tables next to us. It was really cold, so not many people were eating outside. I had on a coat and a bulletproof vest under it and I still wasn't warm. I think the place might be running out of hot for the hot chocolate. "So I didn't think it was good to take a hostage and hurt her. I'm not... I know there's rules for when it's okay and when it's not. And you probably know them really well. But they have, like, complexity and nuance. And you could tell me all of that! But it would take an awful lot of time. So... I'm just gonna trust you that we aren't doing anything evil. Even if it's technically, like, terrorism."

I mean. There is an obvious question there. About someone who can kill someone else and get away with it. And there are a lot of reasons I can come up with why she's better than Kira, and some of them sound really smart. Like the one about how good justice is better than revenge but revenge is way better than corrupt justice and that's all Kira is. But, I would think that wouldn't I? I'd come up with a reason no matter what. SHE came up with reasons too, I bet. So I couldn't trust anything I came up with. 

I sighed. There was one that I knew mattered. "Because when I'm with you, we care about not making mistakes. If bad things have to happen we still try to avoid them. So if we are evil, then, at least we affected a lot fewer people. Right?"

She smiled at me in the affirmative. And I smiled back.

More people pulled open the door to the hamburger place, and the apartments. They would know what was happening. They'd be able to see something hidden from them, and Isamu wouldn't be able to draw them in and exploit them because they'd be running. I mean they would be scared but it would be an accurate scared. But we hadn't seen any runners yet. The yakuza must have been wearing gloves for fingerprints, and nobody else went in the same apartment, and Isamu never left. 

"About... you know, the other thing last night," I said. "That really meant a lot to me. Even if I'm still really tired, it gave me a lot of energy. And..." I bit my lip. "When someone gets, like, shot or something. Like that cop I stabbed. That's not romantic. So don't worry about that."

She gawked at me in disbelief. She was trying to stifle a laugh.

"What? I figured it might be a concern!" I said plaintively. "I'm kind of a crazy person! I wanted you to know that, like, I'm not THAT crazy! I mean, I told Light that if he started dating other girls I'd kill them, but, like, that was self-deprecating humor. Like 'Woo, look at what a yandere I am!' I... think?"

I mean... I was pretty sure. But could I be?

Naomi could clearly tell what I was thinking too. She shook her head, but it was fast enough that I don't know if she meant to do that or nod. "Memory. Uh. And, and memory... new?" She kept her voice low. The way she talked was incredibly distinctive. Even when she wasn't talking about anything suspicious, she wanted to make sure someone couldn't hear it and think it was unusual enough to tell someone. I could tell it kind of made her sad, but the more I talked the less sad it was.

"Right. I made new fake memories when I lost my real ones," I told her. "So... I don't know if I was actually making a joke. Or if that was a fake memory, and I meant it. Or, I mean, I guess I might have never said it at all. But then if I asked about it he wouldn't know what I was talking about so that would be like a rookie fake-memory move."

"Nnggggh!" She was frustrated. I didn't freak out, and in the past I would, but I knew I couldn't avoid that. I just stopped talking and waited for her to clarify. She pulled out the card I made for her and held up //HOW: I am asking a question about something's method or origin!// and said "New?"

"How are the new memories made? I think they got taken away by magic," I said. "But... if it's like amnesia, like all the stuff you had said it was... I would fill in the holes with what was around me?" She was looking at me expectantly. Like I was close, not there. "And... Okay? I would... fit things in, based on what made sense to me? What I thought I would do, right?" She looked like I was getting it. "So... I filled it in based on what I would do... Oh! You mean that, if it's a fake memory, then I must be a person who would say it as a joke. So if the Second Kira would have been serious, I'm not the same person." She nodded slow. That was good to know! Another thing she figured out for me.

Nobody was running from the hamburger place, by the way, or reacting to it, and nobody suspicious had left. I looked at her a lot, but I was still keeping my eyes on our target.

"I mean... in any case he didn't really react. Like it was a joke or not one." I scrunched up my face. "He didn't do much, really. Maybe I forgot about it, but... he didn't do much with me anyway even after I lost my memories, didn't he?" I asked. "Like, you saw me kiss him. I was doing ALL the work. And you know from experience what a lousy kisser I am, but he couldn't even come up to my level!"

Her shoulders were shaking. She was trying not to giggle again.

"I'm a bad kisser! I admit it!" I told her. "I just know stage kisses, which come in two flavors. 'Peck'..." I held up my hands like sock puppets, and touched the fingertips together. "And 'Eat each other's faces'." My hand puppets did just that, kind of chewing where my thumbs met my hands, intersecting at an angle. "And still, Light couldn't match it. Maybe being possessed made him lame. Can you imagine if I told him I thought blood was romantic? He'd probably say something like 'Huh, that's interesting.' I think I only ever said one thing that actually got a reaction from him... and it must have been Second Kira stuff because I can't even recall what it was."

This was not an appropriate subject to talk about! Dishing about an ex-boyfriend who was never really your boyfriend because he was possessed by the ghost of murder and now he's sending people to capture or kill you and you still need to un-possess him to save him BUT not before you figure out where he hid everything, that was just not an appropriate thing to discuss on a stakeout. But she was trying to suppress a smile. And so I kept going. 

"I mean, like, ALL my memories of him before I talked to him through you, they're all fake, right?" I told her. "They're fake and super generic and don't have any details at all because they're made up. And I never noticed because that is just exactly what he's like all the time. He is a saltine person with no salt. We're, we're gonna un-possess him, and we're going to save him just like the cop and the paramedics. But then we're gonna make fun of him. Like, a lot."

She was giggling and clearly thought she shouldn't be, so it was time to keep going more! "If I, if I asked him to be a vampire for me, he'd like put on a cape and then go study like normal. If I showed up at his house in a French maid outfit, he would tell me the basement needed cleaning!" Tee hee. "And, hey, you know..." I leaned in conspiratorially, "If you, uh, you want to keep on trying out confusing things, after I told you my whole blood vampire make me a ghoul thing..." I held up both hands with my fingers crossed. "Reeeally hoping you're into, like, costumes and roleplaying. I feel like I would be really good at that!"

Air was escaping her pursed lips and her shoulders were shaking. I had to keep looking away from her to check on our target, so she could keep laughing. 

"Because I get to keep my outfits! If you want, I can be a sexy French maid..." I wasn't being seductive, well, unless she was into it. I was grinning. "Wait! If you like costumes, that probably means you want to be the maid. You can be the sexy maid, and I can be the aloof heiress who thought she was above such petty concerns as love until she first laid eyes on the mysterious new hire. I thought I was in charge, but I was about to learn a lesson... in loooove. Also the maid is a vampire. Maybe you're sneaking in as a maid to do vampire things? You needed the keys to the maid quarters to suck their blood. This is getting complicated. I guess that's why figuring out your sexuality is so hard, the plot gets difficult to follow." I actually wasn't having any problems with that. I guess that's the benefit of being a crazy person. Naomi was beautiful, and I loved her, and therefore, I liked girls. I wasn't sure how to do that very well, or if I was appreciating the right parts of the female form in the right way, but being silly about it was working so far. I figured later on, when there wasn't a blizzard of death paper, I could sit down and get out a chart and figure out what kind of thing I was. Given I was with a beautiful woman I loved, it didn't seem all that important, you know?

But I know for her it was probably hard. She was not a crazy person and already had more of, like, an idea who she was. And maybe it would be easier to deal with like weird identity problems if it didn't seem so important and looming, like if someone poked fun at it in a friendly way. She was still giggling, so I think it was working. "It's simpler if we're both maids. Maybe you sneak in as a vampire maid? And then I'm the head maid, and I go to confront you. Because you, you keep sucking all the maids' blood, and then they call in sick with anemia, and nobody's getting any work done around here!" I grinned. "Naomi, we may have sexy outfits, but we have a job to do too!" 

What I was saying was funny but not THAT funny, and it was making her laugh all the same. If she felt like me, she... was completely exhausted and was freezing cold and had a splitting headache thrumming under the blanket the painkillers threw over it and that kind of made things funnier. "You could have been a naughty nurse, you know! Then it would be your job. I bet like 3 percent of nurses are vampires anyway, because, like that's just free food, right? And if you were a nurse, I would not have to reveal I only know of two sexy costumes." I smiled with my tongue out. "I'd have to make something up if you were into something else."

She couldn't say anything because of her quiet giggling, and not the usual reason. It took her a second. "Ah... Secretary?"

"Oh, come on, that's easy," I said. "Any vampire needs a secretary to help manage all their night hordes. And you're from like the 14th century so you need someone to show you what phones and E-mail are, and in turn, you show me... about looooooooove." I made an exaggerated kissy face, and then I checked our mark again -- still nothing. "Come on, give me a difficult one."

She made a theatrical thinky pose. "Hmm. Uhhh... Ah, and, and, uh..." She couldn't find the word. She put her hand over her mouth and made mechanical breathing noises. "Water?"

Water, breathing thing -- "Sexy diver? I can do that." Water... Yeah, isn't there depths of the sea that no light gets to anyway? Where the fish are all super ugly because they know nobody sees them. "Aqua-archaeologist Misa found an ancient Ankaran sarcophagus at the bottom of the sea, where no sunlight penetrates. She should report her findings to the academy, but she keeps going down for wetsuited trysts with its mysterious and beautiful occupant, who is showing her an entirely new discovery... Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuve." Then I grabbed her notepaper, the regular kind that didn't kill people. "I'm writing that down. If that was already made into a movie, I'll eat my frostbitten foot."

She didn't look like she was bringing up the name of a movie. Ha! Eat it, Hollywood! Instead, she mimed turning a wheel back and forth. "Drive?"

"A taxi driver? No? A truck driver. Also no." I said. She made kind of a vroom noise. "Oh, a race car driver? Like with the jumpsuit that has all the endorsements on it. Okay. I can do that, but I need a supplemental costume. Because Race Queen Misa thought her job was to look pretty next to the pit crew, and the part where she kept the sun off the driver's face was just a formality!" Naomi was already cracking up. "Little did she know! How important her branded umbrella would be to the mysterious new driver on the crew! And that no matter how powerful the engine, she can't! Outrun! The speed! Of luuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrve!" I had the giggles now, too. "I should stop this. Now I'm just writing romance novels. And if I write them I don't get to read them and I would read all of these," I said with a smile.

She smiled back. Pointed to herself. "Ah. Same." I could tell that look of consideration on her face, she was probably asking 'when was the last time I read a trashy romance?' 

Other than the part where I felt awful, I felt great! Better than I had in a while. Naomi had a severe communication disability and she was bantering along with me better than Light ever did. Even for only one person, I was an entertainer! I felt really good about entertaining someone for the first time since--

Since my parents were murdered. since Light killed the man who did it. 

"Uh... Anyway. I still don't see anyone reacting. They might know they need to hole up," I told her. "Should I go ahead with plan B?"

She thought about it. Checked the time. And gave me the go-ahead. Plan B was technically terrorism, but only technically. Really the only losses were money and L had a giant pile of money to pay everyone back when it was all over. I excused myself into the little girl's room. I locked the door. I turned on the voice scrambler on the phone. And I called up the restaurant: "Disgusting, criminal American culture has no place in Kira's perfect new world. I've planted a bomb in the building, and in one hour, it will be wiped clean from the earth."

Isamu's hiding place was going to be empty.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

What was taking so long? 

The customers left the building, and stood in a loose gaggle outside, those who didn't wander off somewhere else. After an initial surge, people trickled out of the apartment building one or two at a time, and only from the main street-side exits. Nobody was flipping their shit and making the problem twenty times worse, which is a huge advantage of operating in Japan over America. Similar crowds formed up and down the street at every other location Misa called. There were hushed whispers about what might be happening and what it meant. But nobody looked like they were going to do anything destructive. Even when a bunch of us saw Rem's entire leg poking out of the wall for a second as she stepped out of someone's way. Except for Rem, the same happened at three other places up and down the street.

If Isamu came out with the rest, that was great. Everyone freaks out and runs from him, he can't hide in a crowd, he's got a bitch of a time quietly doing anything. If Watari wants to drop him, he can do so; if not, I can shoot him, I can grab him, I can take him somewhere out of the line of fire. 

He didn't. Okay. That's fine. Now our plan splits into two. Denoted by a time line on the notes splitting into a "V". The cops show up, tell everyone to remain calm, and wait for the bomb squad. If the bomb squad hits here first, they're on Kira's team, they know where the real action is, we ambush them in the stairwell, now we can walk up to Isamu's door while he expects a friend. If they don't, if they go the place Misa called first, then eventually a team of three-plus men with masks WILL come here to sweep the building, Misa tags as many as she can with the bracelet from the crowd, and then Isamu gets a problem he has absolutely no way of dealing with. And Misa tries to shoot off a lock in somewhere she threatened, so the multiple felonies she committed were related to the gun. 

It took an hour and a half to convey this contingency plan to Misa before we started talking about costumes, using multiple crude diagrams that I had to burn with a lighter, but she got it. 

Here's the problem: Where was the bomb squad? Nobody had gone in. It was more than thirty minutes. Everyone was still waiting patiently. This isn't normal -- one of these buildings should be being swept by now. And nothing. That wasn't the worst, though. The worst was this:

The power to the entire southern half of Isezakicho, including Hamburger America Hamburger, went out two minutes ago. Rem was nowhere to be seen. We had to go in, he was up to something. I looked at Misa. I pulled out my fake badge, and the briefing photos of the Egawas we still had. 

She nodded. "All right. Let's do this. I have any problems, I'll just try and guess what you would do." She swept her hand down over her face and I did the same. In character. "Let's go."

Cross the street nonchalantly. Don't draw a sniper's attention. Look like we're interested in this big crowd here. Don't shout. Don't get attention on ourselves from anyone outside this little crowd of people. Misa and I flashed our fake badges to the small group, and unzipped our coats partially -- people who wear bulletproof vests and eat at cafes for hours must be cops. "Excuse us," she said in a slightly gruffer voice, a lower register. "Aiko Marukabiianu, JOCD. Has anyone in this building seen these two people?" I held up the profile pics for the crowd. Not too high. Not high enough Watari could see. I didn't know how trigger happy he might be. "Isamu and Nabiki Egawa. Nabiki is pregnant, Isamu was seriously injured. We think they might have holed up in here, and all this stuff happening is mighty suspicious."

A short man with a flat face squinted at me. I just looked businesslike. Someone who chose not to speak, not someone who was incapable. "I... I saw the woman," he said. "Yeah. Not before today, but I saw her on the fourth floor. Said something about, not enough time to burn everything, or, burning something for time? I'm not sure. It wasn't very long ago."

Misa and I looked at each other. Shit. Shiiiiit. She was destroying the evidence, which included the record of when we had to kill those people she violated in a way that could get them back. If anything was left, then there was no time to waste. No time to screw around. She approached the patrolman standing by the door and flashed her badge, but hopefully still not in a way that made a scene. "Officer?" she said. "There's no bomb in that building. There's just Isamu and Nabiki Egawa, destroying evidence of their crimes. We're going in. If you want to wait for a warrant that's fine by us."

Misa Amane was a national celebrity. Everyone knew her face, even if they recognized it with different hair. And everyone was thinking of her because she was a huge news item. People who had just evacuated their homes for a bomb threat were talking about the insane thing that just happened with Misa Amane. Her entire career was built on people recognizing her in different contexts. And maybe it was total confidence. Maybe it was her absolute trust in me. Maybe she was just a berserker. But there wasn't a single hint of doubt or fear or desire to hide in her demeanor. She wasn't trying to look less like Misa. She was someone who obviously resembled that actress, but just as obviously wasn't, and you'd be foolish to think she was. Hugh Jackman placed fifth in the Hugh Jackman lookalike contest. The Kuleshov effect was an actress's best friend. 

"Uh. Go ahead, ma'am," said the patrol officer who clearly wasn't ready for a jurisdictional pissing match. Of course she shook his hand, as a show of professional courtesy. We were in. We walked one step inside from the door. We dropped our coats, and we pulled out our guns. Misa's fired blanks, but nobody else knew that. 

Misa stuck behind me, just like I told her. Her job was to watch my back. Our back. Keep all my blood safe inside her by sticking with me, giving me information, and providing fake cover fire if necessary, forcing hostiles to hide.

The first floor was tiny, with only the passenger elevators and the mailboxes to accompany the stairwell. With the power out, the elevators wouldn't move. This stairwell was the only way up or down. We went as fast as we could to still be called "careful". Nobody on the floor 2 landing. Wrap a tie on the handle to get in and out of the floor to keep it that way, in case they were hiding and planned to sneak past us. Nobody on the floor 3 landing. Wrap a cable tie to keep that way. Nobody on the floor 4 landing...

Wait. This is labeled as the fifth floor. Four is death, after all. Like an American skyscraper skipping from floor 12 to floor 14. But our informant said the fourth floor... which meant our informant didn't live in this building. 

I motioned Misa to stop. Carefully, I hugged the wall, I reached out to the door handle that gave access to the 'fifth' floor. I jiggled it a bit... The door exploded outward, kicked by an off-white pair of slacks, belonging to a man who charged forward expecting to grab a woman he'd just stunned. He was surprised for a very short time when I kicked him in the back of the knee to send him kneeling. Then I smashed his face into the banister and broke his nose without even looking at him. I was looking at the friend standing behind him. The one who dropped the tire iron and held up his hands. The one who had my laser sight dancing on his chest.

"Oh, hey, ha ha!" he laughed. "You... dealt with that pretty easy, huh? And you have a gun! We must look awfully foolish right now, huh?" 

"Uh. Uh..." God damn it, the simple command you barked at someone who you had a gun to the head of! The, the, everyone knows it, "Talk." Beneath me, Misa zip-tied the first ambusher's wrists to the banister. At least he knew better than to try anything.

"Talk? Sure I'll talk, darling!" he said with what I can only call panicked charm. "I'll come over there and get tied up, too. Please don't break my face. My face has an unbroken record going." I wordlessly scowled as he advanced. "Okay! Okay! She told us that two armed women were coming up to the fourth floor. We were supposed to stop you. She said we weren't supposed to kill the shorter one, but we could break up to two limbs." That meant Rem could hear her, and these guys could not see Rem. "I don't know what else they had planned. Uh, keep you out of room 508, there's some information there? I didn't see it. It was just us two, and they left before us and told us to get ready when the power cut." He put his arms out hopefully onto the banister. I motioned for him to put them behind his back, and Misa bound him. Very cooperative when he saw his buddy get his shit ruined in half a second and he had a gun on him. Must have been a new guy.

"Don't scream. Don't alert anyone," Misa cautioned. "If there is anyone else in there we're going to hurt you very, very badly."

He clearly tried to mime zipping his lips shut, but his arms were bound. The guy on the floor didn't want any more either. And I hadn't alerted any remaining people with a gunshot. 

Misa and I stopped just outside of sight range in the fourth-floor hallway, waiting a moment to see if our friend would alert anyone down the hall. Not a peep. We crept down the hallway, guns drawn. The lights flickered back on, here and on the rest of the street. 508 was about where Rem's spare body parts poked out, and the two yakuza had locked it on their way out. Hinges on the wrong side this time, but flimsy. I raised my leg as high as it would go, holding Misa for balance, and axe-kicked the handle right off the cheap particle board door. I pulled us out of the line of fire, but there was none coming. The apartment was empty.

Then I had an awful realization. Why cut the power? There was nothing I did that required electricity, and nothing I saw that needed it to be off. They cut the power to pull me in. They cut the power... Nobody could get in or out of the elevator while the power was off. THAT'S where they hid. It ensured I would skip them over. 

My eyes went wide. I looked down the hallway, to the window. The fire escape. Misa saw me. She looked back into the room. The death paper might be in there. She couldn't let those people stay dead. 

"Go!" she shouted, brandishing her gun. "I'll defend myself if anyone shows up, and I'll find the evidence!"

It was time to trust her.

As I ran down the hallway, I smacked myself on the knee repeatedly, trying to nail the little metal filament in the ice pack I'd preemptively wrapped around myself. My bad knee was about to become a problem. I still didn't have a hearing aid, but this one I could at least do something about. 

The fire alarm exploded into shrieks when I kicked the door to the fire escape open. Sure enough, they had used the cargo elevator in the alley. There they were. Staggering Isamu, propped up by his wife. I couldn't see his face, it was wrapped in bandages, but he had Rem and a ventilator for his bullet-collapsed lung. There was their slave the cop. Another new friend in a casual suit. A briefcase, a bag. And Rem, looming behind them all. I don't know how the hell Isamu thought they were going to blend in but it wasn't going to work. He was already getting gasps before even emerging from the alley. Then came the gasps from me setting off the fire alarm. I drew on him as fast as I could, but Rem was standing in the way again. The yakuza looked around in confusion, and I think Nabiki slapped him with... a notebook, that didn't have any pages in it.

BLAM!

The yakuza dove for cover to my right, if I hit him all I did was wing him. Nabiki shouted at him that he was supposed to hide behind the monster, as if he could have guessed that. The officer drew his revolver. 

I couldn't shoot him. And I'm left-handed, so I couldn't shoot him from around the corner anyway. I ducked back into the doorway as he fired... and kept firing. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! His police revolver held five rounds, he was keeping me from poking my head out. Suppression. 

Misa looked to me, but I waved her back. We needed that information, and I had a feeling that they would leave some behind -- if the trap failed, then we might spend enough time looking at it to let them escape. And my suspicions were confirmed about the cop. Just like I thought, he instructed all of his men to capture people alive for resisting Kira. He fired at me with no chance of killing me. The paper was making him act this way, the paper needed a name and face to kill, and therefore the paper could not cause the death of someone else who hadn't been written in.

But his suppressive fire had bought him some time. "Fuck it! Throw me the gun if you're going to hide! I'll take her apart myself!" They still had the hunting shotgun. Rem had said she'd kill me, she'd find a way. She wasn't acting on the orders of death paper. 

The fire escape was made of metal, that gun was loaded with birdshot that failed to pierce Misa's vest at much closer range. I took a chance. I jumped out onto the landing, in the back, with my head shielded by the dangling stair to the next floor. Sure enough,

BLAM!

God DAMN it that smarts! I was going to have welts tomorrow, and it stung like a mother, but I was fine. I didn't have a lot of time to be in pain right now. I had no time to climb down all the flights of metal stairs, but monkey-barring down the back side was quicker and put a lot of metalwork in between me and her. BLAM! She fired again, but I didn't even feel it. Totally obscured by the fire escape. I dropped to the ground from the second floor and went flat against a vending machine. The wall was on my left when I was facing her. God, everything here would be perfect if I was right-handed. My knee was already aching.

"God damn it! Fuck! give, me, give me the shells!" Nabiki ordered, snapping her fingers.

"Drop the weapon! Now!" the patrol officers commanded. The commotion around the corner had turned into screaming and panic. One of them had a much shakier voice than the other two, and he said "You, you... You need to stand down, whatever you are!" Rem wasn't doing that. She was staring at me, crouching to provide cover for the Egawas. 

"No, you don't understand!" the lieutenant said. "This woman is in witness protection! She NEEDS to be taken to a safe place, NOW!" But I didn't hear the snap of a break-action being broken open. Nobody was handing her ammo.

I threw a can out of my hiding place, no reaction. Quickly jammed my hand out, no reaction. Neither of our armed humans had reloaded, and the three cops with guns drawn on them were a bigger problem. I had to charge up a word, get it to be the one sound held in my working verbal memory. I had to be a capable law enforcer, not someone obviously disabled. Had to win the crowd, whoever hadn't yet fled. I muttered to myself that word, the word when if someone moves you will kill them, that you say fluently and with confidence. "Uh, hmm... Ah, and... freeze? Freeze."

"FREEZE!" I shouted as I rounded the corner, both hands on my weapon. I was on the side of the cops. They had to know that. 

"Don't!" the officer said back. I still didn't know that poor man's name. "This woman is a wanted criminal! She's an assassin and she's here to murder an innocent, pregnant woman!"

"THERE IS A SKELETON GHOST NEXT TO YOU!" shouted the patrolman to complete the trifecta. 

That skeleton ghost was looking right at me. "You should run," she intoned. "You can't beat him." If I wasn't a brain-damaged cripple maybe I could figure out exactly what she was talking about. We could negotiate a solution. But subtle and quick negotiation was beyond me. And she was standing in between me and two murderous rapists on the lam. 

I had made a couple observations from my tussle with Rem, before I could see her. Rem was a supernatural creature of otherworldly strength and totally invincible constitution. She also had never ever fought anyone before she fought me. 

I advanced. Gun held straight. How do I reinforce that I am a law enforcement officer and get the observers on my side? How do I look like I don't have brain damage? Words all flee from my brain and syntax is impossible. But phrases that aphasics memorized completely by rote, with no variation, count as a single word in your brain's filing system. And the archetypal example of such a phrase was important for my job. A phrase I said into a mirror sometimes, to remind myself to know what it was like to put words one after the other.

"You're under arrest!" I barked in English. "You have the right to remain silent! If you choose to waive this right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law! You have the right to an attorney!" even though in Japan they did not, "If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you!" If I paused at any point, I would have fallen apart into stammers. But I didn't. All one word.

Even if they couldn't speak English they recognized the cadence. Of course, he must be an international criminal! I wasn't looking at the Egawas, I couldn't see them. I was looking at the captive lieutenant. Still didn't know his name. And the patrolmen, one with his gun on Rem, the others not sure what was going on. I kept slowly walking forward. My name is Naomi God Damn Misora, the Misora Massacre, the greatest law enforcement agent the FBI had seen since J. Edgar Hoover first put on women's garters, and everyone else needs to help or get out of my way. 

"Sir..." said the patrolman in a shaky voice. "Sir, I think you need to stand down. Both of you. I don't know if she's a cop or an assassin. I know she's not the one with the SKELETON GHOST." The officer put his gun down carefully. If he kept fighting he'd put his masters in danger, make a shootout. Nabiki dropped her weapon with a clatter. Now my only problem was that if I blew Isamu's head off, I'd be shot before anyone could check that I had a serial number that meant I got to do whatever. I needed a scene first. I clicked on my safety. And I started bouncing from one leg to the other. Always keep moving.

"I don't want to do this," Rem said. "But I can't let you interfere. I can't let you put her in danger."

Rem had a real funny god damn idea of what would keep Misa safe. Anyone else could have got it out from her. I just needed to get an unobstructed line of sight that didn't have her in it. My arms went up at my side with each bounce left and right. 

"I can't kill you. But they will." she said. She couldn't kill me, she didn't know how to fight, and I could see her. It was time to go. The second I got into her armspan, Rem swung a spine-arm at me while most of the crowd watched in horror and the rest watched in confusion. I easily lunged underneath it, diving into range. I swept my heel into her 'ankles' to bring her off her feet. Her impossible body wasn't exactly stable, her right leg crumpled immediately, and her left leg -- my leg slid through it with what I can only describe as a visual 'bzzt' and an awful grave-chill sensation. She went intangible to avoid tripping -- and was no longer blocking fire. One fluid motion, flick off the safety, take the momentum to roll into a crouching position, and shoot right into her. Right through her ghostly body. I only had a vague guess as to where the Egawas were, so I kept it low.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! 

The third bullet impacted Rem's bony chest, about the time Nabiki started screaming "YOU SHOT ME YOU CRAZY BITCH I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU SHOT ME! REM! Why can't you deal with her! Where is the CAR! Why are NONE OF YOU HELPING!" They weren't helping because I was fighting a monster and you were commanding it. Rem was solid again, She tried to grab me, or maybe just my gun, but when I could see her coming she was painfully slow and uncoordinated. She got a handful of asphalt as I rolled to the side. I grabbed her arm and I yanked myself to my feet -- had to make sure the people who didn't see the monster were seeing something that was clearly physically impossible. My feet shot up to Rem's snake-eyed face and planted on it, then I kicked off in a backwards somersault. Showy. But everyone would know what was going on. And maybe I got road mud in her eye. 

There was more screaming from up the street. All three patrolmen were holding out their guns, ordering the Egawas to keep their hands up, even as Nabiki was shrieking about her leg. The officer was edging closer. No sign of their yakuza escort. I landed out of the backflip and pain shot up my right leg. Christ. I was really counting on some more performance from that joint, but any ice pack that let me bend my knee wasn't a very powerful ice pack. I staggered to the side, I winced, and Rem grabbed me by the shoulder. I twisted underneath, I bent her arm back, but I needed leverage -- I wasn't going to win a direct struggle. But I had time. I had an audience seeing me levitate and both Egawas were injured. Rem started to lift me up so I couldn't kick off of anything. Held me out too far to land a foot on her face. I struggled. And I got a clear view of what the screaming up the street was about. 

I was such an idiot. Such a God damn idiot. I thought I was denying him assets, denying him people he could kill and control. By making sure everyone who walked in without gloves could see Rem, and they'd run. I forgot. I forgot he already had six names and faces, five of which were attached to people who he knew the routines and general locations of. The mob didn't cut the power. Someone killed themselves by electrocution and knocked out the power.

Roaring down the street were two cars. One red RX-7 and one blue Land Cruiser. Both of them skidded to a stop right in front of the building. And the SUV's driver's door opened up and out came a round-faced woman. Mayo Juba. Materials R&D. Foaming at the mouth, skin turning blue, eyes awfully bloodshot, she could barely get clear of the vehicle before she started vomiting very chunky blood. Behind her vehicle Hiraga Shohei, International Shipping, was doing the same thing. Horrifically poisoned to make sure there wasn't any revival. The Egawas were going to clear out the Yotsuba Prosperity Council before any of them could provide evidence. They doubled up on cars... because they wanted to make sure at least one of their escape vehicles made its timetable and the target didn't just have an impossibility heart attack. They killed one of those people for a safety margin.

"All right! Fine!" Nabiki shouted. "Here's how it's going to be! Any of you try and stop us from escaping, and our pet demon is going to be forced to rip this lady cop in half!" She took an assisted step toward her still-running escape vehicle, gasping in pain, and Rem was dragged toward him and I was dragged with her. "I don't want that to happen! None of you want that to happen, do you?"

She was counting on me being unable to vocalize how Rem couldn't kill me. So, it was time to see how much of the crowd I'd won with my performance. "Ah. Ah." I took a deep breath. I must not speak Japanese very well. No time to think about how that works. I have to find the word to talk to the Japanese crowd. "SHOOT!"

One. Two. Three patrolmen brought their weapons back up. At the Egawas. "Ma'am, I have no idea what in God's name you're doing", said the far one -- one who just saw me hovering. "But any of the three of you take another step and I will be forced to fire." He thumbed back the hammer on his revolver. "Lie down on the ground with your hands behind your heads, all of you." The Japanese-American monster hunting cop won out over the native warlocks. Finally.

Rem had to drop me. She had to. She chucked me into the horrified crowd like a concert T-shirt and I bowled an elderly couple over, we hit the ground in a heap. Nabiki screamed, "Get in! Get in!", and chucked her purse and the notebook cover into the car, heedless of the blood oozing down her thigh. And Rem needed both of her hands -- three cops with guns, two of them couldn't see her moving to yank the revolvers from their hands and rip out the cylinders. The third started to shoot her, but it was no use. The captive officer, whose name I still didn't know, threw Isamu into the backseat, then Nabiki, both of them howling in pain. I struggled to my feet, unable to draw a line of fire on them through the crowd. I heard something crash, Isamu chucking something at the RX-7 to render it unusable. Officer jumped into the driver's seat, over the poisoned human corpse. And he stomped the accelerator.

I was not going to let him get away. I could really use Misa to cover angles but that would take minutes I did not have. The moment I found my feet, I stormed forward. Not to the sports car with the brick through the windshield. To the police motorcycle that brought our patrolman here. I snapped and then held out my hand, and they understood that language perfectly well. With no objection, one of them threw me a set of keys. Thank God, finally the police had done something useful. The bike started right away, and I was ready to give chase. Two other patrolmen were getting their car, and calling everyone else stationed up and down the street. I hoped this would wrap by the time they figured out which side of the Kira Equation we were on.

They had a head start, but not as much speed. Running through a full crowd of people was a bad idea in addition to being mass murder because the car would be damaged, but our lieutenant was slowing down, hammering the horn, letting everyone flee is path. Rem might have been batting people out of the way. Neither of them can kill another human being.

Maybe being controlled by the paper renders him literally incapable of causing death. Maybe they told him that he couldn't allow himself to, because that would break the rules of the paper and give him a default heart attack. They really didn't care about human life at all. He was just an object grabbed because he was in arm's reach. 

And he only made it about 500m, not even to the exit of Isezakicho, when there was a cloud-splitting

**BOOOM!**

and a news helicopter hovering steady in the distance was suddenly jerked backwards. The SUV immediately lost control, probably because a half-inch slug just drilled a hole through a bunch of vital engine components. Watari was on the scene. The SUV skidded and collided with a light pole, and I gunned the engine to close the gap and get in an alley before he righted that whirlybird in time to line up a shot on my head. L's people were here. This entire scene was about to become a catastrophe.

The SUV came to a stop in front of an arcade, empty of people and full of noisy, blaring machines. Rem put out her arm for Isamu to grab as he crawled out of the car, but she wasn't actually helping him move, and he collapsed to the ground, back against the car, the moment he had to support his own weight. Rem looked up to the sky, and then to me. She stepped toward me, hunching her head.

I bopped from my left to my right. I was ready for Round Two. I didn't have to impress anyone this time. 

BLAM!

I shot out the passenger window above him, showering broken glass on him. Rem looked back in shock and came at me. But not too far. Not past her maximum range, the range she got dragged to when he moved away. I grabbed the miniature pole used to make a fabric barrier around the DDR machine, and I swung it at Rem's head. She caught it, of course, and I twirled my momentum away from it and took a couple pot shots at Isamu's slumped form. He was NOT walking away from this. 

BLAM! BLAM!

I danced back out of Rem's reach. She threw the pole at me, I easily rolled out of the way. What else could I use to force her to go intangible?

I heard gasping. Isamu. Crawling on all fours. Getting closer to me so Rem could grab me. Pulling a sheet from his pocket. Shouting. "Rem! Rem! I wanna take the deal! There, there has to be someone around here--"

I heard screaming. Nabiki. Distant, being dragged away. "No! Let me go! That's my HUSBAND! He NEEDS ME! You're, god damn it, you're supposed to do what I SAY! I don't CARE If I got shot! DO WHAT I SAY AND GO BACK AND SAVE HIM!" Shrieking. Sobbing. 

Rem closed her eyes and shuddered. She turned her back to me, to face him. I got ready to bait her left and roll right and hopefully take off Isamu's head. And then

**BOOOM!**

The car and the front of the store was drenched in blood and chunks of gore. Rem looked around in terror for a second, and then she was YANKED through a hole in nothing the size of my wrist, pulled rapidly and violently away, back in the direction we came from. I could see Isamu's body now, his head completely erased. Watari had decapitated him when he crawled just a bit closer. 

I needed to hide. I needed to get Misa and hide and we needed to get the Hell out of here. Where did Rem go? Is she still here? Is she invisible again? How much concrete can a .50 BMG round penetrate? I looked around frantically for some exit that wouldn't leave me exposed. I lost focus. I panicked. Just for long enough.

For long enough for our missing friend in the casual suit to swing a broken chunk of handrail at my bad knee and stab me in the side as I fell.

### 
    
    
    * R U L E S *

**55b**. In the occasion where the cause of death is possible but the situation is not, only the cause of death will take effect for that victim. If both the cause and the situation are impossible, that victim will die of heart attack.

**ADDENDUM:** The heart attack occurs 6 minutes and 40 seconds from the time of writing the name, regardless of the time written, if both cause and situation are impossible.

 **X-7a**. If for some reason a human whose name was written in the Death Note reaches the time of death without dying at all -- such as if they were revived before 117 seconds elapse, or if rare and completely unforeseeable circumstances result in accidentally avoiding death at the exact moment of demise -- the Death Note attempts to repeat the cause of death 139 seconds later. It will do this up to three times.

**X-7b**. If the circumstances of death are made impossible due to secondary events that occur as a result of that same Death Note entry -- a person who is made to act irregular for a prolonged period and then kill themselves will be restrained for their safety, for example -- then as much of the circumstances as possible will occur. At the appointed time, the victim will die of a heart attack. 

**X-7c**. The power of the Death Note is limited by the speed of light. If a human's death is written in a valid entry, but the time of that human's death has passed by the time light can travel from the user to the victim, then the victim's death will not occur. This will happen if no details are written about a human who is 41 light-seconds away.

**X-7d**. For this reason, gods of death should not travel further from Earth than the L2 Earth-Moon LaGrange point.


	8. Termination Procedure

### 
    
    
    * M I S A *

"Go!" I shouted, brandishing my blank pistol. "I'll defend myself if anyone shows up, and I'll find the evidence!" I needed her here, I needed her to protect me, but I had no other choice. There were only two of us. There were two places we had to be. She ran down the hall, smacking her leg to turn on her ice pack. I ducked back into the apartment. The fire alarm went off, and I heard gunshots, but Naomi waved me back to the apartment. She looked totally in control and not afraid at all, so, it was time to get the info.

All right. What did the Egawas leave in here?

First thing to do was make sure they didn't leave any people. So I opened the closets, nothing. Bathroom, shower curtain, nothing. Tiny bedroom, nothing but fresh white sheets and bloody ones in the garbage. That's not burnable trash, that's in the wrong can. Tiny guest room, a couch covered in more blood, but no people. Nobody hidden in the main room behind furniture. Nothing really to hide under. In the refrigerator?

I opened the fridge and a human corpse fell out. I screamed in shock. There was no blood anywhere on him, and the guy was in a suit with no tie like gangsters wear. He wasn't the source of all the blood. Isamu probably was, the doc worked here. This guy wasn't shot or stabbed... Damn it. Isamu Kira'd him to prove his powers. He probably was turning state's evidence or something, and the other gangsters didn't stop him.

I don't know what you do to someone like that to show respect. Or if you show any. He could have been a gangster with a heart of gold trying to go straight or an evil slaver and murderer. I'll never know. I closed his eyes, and I put a towel over him as a shawl, and if I knew any good prayers I would have said one. But I had to keep going for the people I could still save. 

There was nobody in the house, unless there were secret compartments somewhere, and if there were they were probably awkward to get out of. Okay. If I was evidence, if I was a stack of murder paper, where would I be? There was a bunch of medical supplies on the door of the fridge where the guy was, and I grabbed a couple of things I recognized. No notes, though. More medicine and strawberry ice cream in the freezer. It's just a little kitchen nook, no island, no full size oven. Probably wouldn't find anything, but I wanted to make sure --

Hang on. Everything turned off when the power went out, but the toaster oven doesn't have its knobs straight. It's... Who sets a toaster oven to 200 degrees?

Apparently, someone cooking paper. No! Drying paper. It was a stack of lined sheets, like they'd all been torn out of a notebook on the perforated part. The lower right corner of the stack was burned up, like it was set on fire. And the rest of it was damp. Like they doused it to put the fire out. How was it still damp after so long, with some amount of that time in an oven? It was magic paper, maybe it had infinity water in it, I don't know.

The front of the stack was just encrusted in names and times, no details. God, this was... a lot of people. On this one sheet of paper. People I had no idea about. Probably all of them were criminals. I couldn't do anything about them anyway, they were already dead. If I pried these pages apart one at a time I'd never get to what I needed...

I flipped the stack over. //SALVATORE DI FORENZI. OVERDOSE. BREAKS HIS FOOT IN A MINOR TRAFFIC ACCIDENT AND IS PRESCRIBED OPIOIDS. ONE WEEK LATER, HE DRINKS HEAVILY TO CELEBRATE A SOON TO BE COMPLETED BUSINESS DEAL, AND THE INTERACTION CAUSES HIM TO DIE OF AN OPIOID OVERDOSE ON MAY 15TH AT 9:28 PM CENTRAL EUROPEAN TIME.//

A business guy. Isamu did his criminal Kira-ing on one side, and then his personal murders on the other. He would want to keep them separate, wouldn't he? 

Everything was stuck together, and now the lower left corner was burned up. It was gooey, so I couldn't rifle through it, I could tear the pages and they could get stuck together with important info on them. I didn't have time to dry it out all the way, for all we knew the cop's deadline was in ten minutes. But... I have a scalpel, to use for various things. And was there a hair dryer in the bathroom? Yes, it was a crappy one, but it blows air! 

All right, this can work! The scalpel is super thin, so it can slip in to any tiny crack between the pages when I bend the whole stack. Turn it sideways to prop the hole open... point the hair dryer in there... Schloomp! It puffed the hole out, and the paper peeled apart as naturally as it can! The burned part crumbled away, and there was bleed-through of the ink between facing pages, but it's still legible. Eat it, Kira, acting like I don't know how to do things!

I know what name I'm looking for, so it didn't take much time to get each page out and classify it. The last guy he killed for personal use was Santoro Zansai, so once I see that name... 

There! It's cut off by the burned bit, but I can see //STROKE. SEPTEMBER 12th, 2007 3:23 AM. AWAKENED IN SUDDEN PANIC, HE ATTEMPTS TO CALL// and //OXYGEN-STARVED BRAIN DISTORTS HIS THOUGHTS AND PERCEPTIONS.// That was the right day and cause. But everything below it was burned up, nothing on the facing page...

No. It wasn't lost. I had to keep going. The next page was blank. But I can't stop. The next one was blank too. But...

He was in a hurry, wasn't he? He wouldn't go to the last entry and make another one underneath it when he was afraid of being shot. He'd grab the notebook, grab the pages from the back in a chunk, flip past all the ones that had something written in one go... And stop two or three pages past it.

Here we go. I mashed the quick-dial for Ryuzaki's Official L-Phone. "Ryuzaki! I found it!" I shouted without bothering to let him talk. "The entry for the cop they have controlled! Get a pen! It's //TARO OGAWA. SUICIDE. WRACKED WITH LONELINESS, HE FALLS IN LOVE WITH THE PREGNANT WOMAN WHO JUST LEFT HIS OFFICE AND RESOLVES TO DO ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING HE POSSIBLY CAN TO HELP HER AND HER HUSBAND ATTAIN THEIR GOALS. ON OCTOBER 6th, AT 4 AM, HE REALIZES HE CAN NEVER HAVE HER AND TAKES HIS OWN LIFE TO BE AT PEACE.//"

There was a bit of silence on the line. Then Ryuzaki spoke. Good, because if it was Light I would have to do it again. "Is that it? It uses natural human language? It can... dictate circumstance so widely, but be so vague about it?"

"Apparently, yeah!" I said back. "This is definitely the stuff! But I don't see... any entry about the paramedics... God damn it! He didn't control them. They were already on Kira's team. What -- whatever! You got his name, you got the time, you got the thing he has to do! Are you going to save Taro Ogawa's life or not?"

Another pause. There was a conversation in the background, some important command. "I will do everything in my power to ensure that on October 6th, at 4 AM, officer Taro Ogawa is naked in a padded cell containing only a reversible method of suicide."

"Good! Good. Okay, I'll see you again when we catch Light and prove he's Kira and I'm not," I said. 

"You have now admitted to me that, from Isamu Egawa, you reclaimed the object used by Kira to perform killings," he said.

"That's a conversation we can have when you're apologizing to me for thinking I was Kira!" I snapped. And I hung up. Man, that felt good. I just saved an innocent guy's life and that mattered a whole lot. Time to put all these sheets in a plastic bag, try to secure it with our stuff, and turn around and "OH GOD WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?" I fell against the kitchen nook counter. I pulled the gun from it and waved it at her, but even if it was real it wouldn't work. 

Rem was here. Staring at me. For I don't know how long. She slowly lifted a bony, bony hand and she pointed at me. At my wrist. The paper bracelet on it. "You were the first to touch the Death Note after the previous owner died." I couldn't tell if she was sighing or hissing. "That makes you the new owner, and my charge."

One, Isamu was dead? Damn, Naomi, that was only like ten minutes. Two -- "Are, are you possessing me now? Are you going to make me Kira? Or are you a Kira and you make me your servant?" I grabbed at myself, my face, my stomach, my legs. Was I growing spikes? I didn't feel evil, but SHE didn't feel evil either. All this paper was valuable evidence that would give families closure, but I couldn't be allowed to have it, maybe it could fit in the garbage disposal before I turned...

"I haunt the human who owns the Death Note," she said. "I cannot compel your actions."

It didn't feel like she was lying. She didn't have the energy for it. So that was... maybe I had been possessed by someone else. I put the papers, the Death Note I guess, back into the baggie. "Okay..." I told her. "So you are not serving the Egawas any more. I'm your summoner? I have to kill for you? What are you? Why were you helping that couple?"

"There is... no need for you to do that," she said. Was she biting her lip? Did that even mean the same thing? "I am a shinigami. We are gods of... We are created by the Death Note. A notebook that can slay any human by recording their name and envisioning their face. Each of us must have one with us at all times. We are ordinarily invisible to humans. But if one of us acquires two Notes... they may grant it to a human. The human may do with it as she pleases." Another pause. "I helped those two because... Kira said it was necessary to maintain your well-being."

"Kira. That's Light Yagami. I know it is, you don't have to pretend," I said. "Do you have to do what I say? Can I make you tell everyone what Light is doing?" Because that would be like cheating, but man, I would totally take that.

"I won't... do things that may endanger your safety." I wished I could read her face. "Know that Kira as a plan for you to ensure your well-being. I'll go along with it. I will help you to the best of my ability outside of that."

Hmm. "So. You don't want to hurt me. You can't make me kill people. And -- you are here with a space book. So you gave your spare book to Light Yagami? Or you gave it to me. Or it belonged to your dead friend, right?" 

This definitely was a sigh. "It belonged to Gelus. He died to spare your life. I thought it right that you have it. You loved Kira, the other user, so much."

I really did. God. That was... that would be when the stalker came at me with a knife. It was right before the Second Kira. That would be why I couldn't remember how I got out. I didn't remember anything involving shinigami. 

A shinigami. A god of death, or, the delivery mechanism for the real god of death. She could answer so many questions. Provide valuable intel. I doubted she would betray the head Kira by giving up Light's plan, but still, she knew so much... I flipped open my phone. I found the recording function. And I asked. "Gelus. Your friend. You said... that if I died, the last of him would be gone. right?" Take a deep breath. Someone, something, died for me. I had to... I had to respect that somehow. "Tell me about him."

Rem looked taken aback. I think she would have gasped or something but she doesn't need to breathe. She kept looking to see if I was serious. I kind of waved the phone recorder at her. "Gelus was...

"Shinigami. We are the most vile, repulsive, irredeemable beings in existence. We sustain our lifespan by stealing it from humans with the Death Note, and expend it to no purpose. We are worthless. Except him. I do not understand how he came into existence, or how he existed that long. He was... a frail creature. Like a cloth doll. He took lifespan only from those in incurable suffering. He was gentle. He... he watched humans. Not to prey upon them. To see them being happy. He believed... humanity was precious. Worth something. More than we were." Other than pausing for words, Rem wasn't emoting at all. No movement, no changes in register, not looking away, nothing. Was she emotionless? Or did she just not express them the same way?

She kept going. "He fell in love with you. He... admired you. You performed after the death of your parents. To continue to make other humans happy. He found this trait admirable. Worth saving. Shinigami can see a human's lifespan, and knew that yours would be short. He said that were it not unfairly taken from you, you would use your life to become someone great. He followed you. He wanted to see if he could make your last moments happy and peaceful. He saw your stalker, and his knife... A shinigami who extends a human life by using their Death Note will die. All of their lifespan will be transferred to the human he saved. I warned him. Urged him to stop. He said he was happy to stop existing. To give his life to you. Your assailant died of a heart attack before he could claim your life."

Oh my God. "And you, you saw it? You came to give me the Death Note afterwards because, because what? So I could be more like him?"

"His Note fell to the ground when he died," Rem said. "I thought it only appropriate you have it. You had his life."

Oh my God. "You, so you haunted me. And you, what, you watched me? You WATCHED ME?" All of a sudden I was shouting, gasping. "You watched me kill those people! Is that it? Did you help? Did you direct me, or did you just say how it works and tell me to go nuts? Why would -- how -- Is that what Gelus wanted? Huh? Me to kill a bunch of innocent people? Make a, a bunch of awful mistakes I can never take back?"

Rem tried to defend herself. "I gave you only what you--"

"YOU GAVE A CHILD A LOADED GUN!" I shouted. If there was still a crowd downstairs they heard me. "I wasn't, I couldn't have that responsibility! Not then! Not like that! I was confused and distraught and broken up and I wanted someone to take away my pain and you thought, you thought, you thought that me killing people was going to solve that somehow? Huh? If something is awful, and you wanna do something, and you don't know what, you, you should at least not make it WORSE!" I snapped through the tears in my eyes. It was me. It was all me. No possession. I was an awful, murderous person. Some irresponsible monster gave me the perfect murder weapon and I went crazy with it. I couldn't even figure out what was wrong with doing that. All I cared about was Kira. No. All I cared about was myself. Making that empty, hollow Misa-shaped shell I was get filled up with something, anything to make me exist again. To make the fear go away. To make the world make sense. Well this was an awful world with gods of death who do whatever they feel like and it would never make sense. I'd never be a full person.

"I have..." Rem said, "Tried to aid you as much as I could. I have followed Kira's plan to ensure your safety. All of these events were engineered by him."

"Shove it," I spat. I clicked the phone recorder closed. "Light isn't that smart. Naomi and I are going to take him down. I don't want you cooperating with his dumb plan any more, okay?" Outside, a truck rolled up. //EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE DISPOSAL// in big yellow text. And it came here first. That meant they were in on it. Crap. And now my phone was buzzing. She needed help. "After Naomi took out Isamu, did you see where she was going next, or were you pulled off right away?"

"Naomi did not kill Isamu," Rem said. "The human with the distance rifle did."

"WHAT?"

Outside, the one remaining patrol cop was letting the EOD team inside Four guys? Five? "THAT'S what that was? Watari is sniping people and she's pinned down and you didn't tell me? We have to go after her! Can you, can you fly over and carry me?"

One of the team was wearing a huge, bulky bombproof suit. Wonderful. "I am incapable of carrying a human for the purpose of transport," she said. 

The door closed behind them. The bomb squad was on its way up and they were going to shoot me. "Great!" I shouted. "I'm jumping out this window, so all you have to do is catch me!"

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

Screams of pain aren't words. I can produce those just fine. As I fell to the ground, my flesh ripped open by a switchblade, I produced a very fluent one. The blade went in just below my bulletproof vest, and its owner couldn't drag it upward like he wanted. At least I didn't drop my gun when I fell. 

"You WHORE!" the man shouted in anger. "You have any idea who that was? Any idea? Kira's going to have all of our heads for losing his servant. Unless I bring--"

BLAM! BLAM!

I can still aim from the ground. I'm not letting you bludgeon or stab me any more to get in Kira's good graces. Therefore, shut up. The first bullet struck him dead center mass, the second was insurance. He fell dead to the floor. 

My knee was in agony. I was aware of the pain in my side, and the life leaking out of it. It hurt. But it didn't smell like shit, so he hadn't nicked my intestine. The wound would kill me as I lost more and more blood, but that would take hours. The knee was the big problem. I couldn't bend it, and there was no way I could put the slightest weight on it. I'd collapse in agony again. People were running, screaming, fleeing in the main street of Isezakicho, but the police were going to be here quick, and then so would L's people, and I wouldn't last long enough to run ballistics or a serial number. If I even got taken in, I wasn't getting out under my own power. Isamu had a cop in his thrall, I had to assume he'd get the police back on his side before long. If L didn't get me I'd coincidentally die of excited delirium.

None of my theorizing would matter if I couldn't get up. Above Isamu's decapitated body, I could see the seat. The briefcase he had with him. It had to have his notebook sheets in it, whatever wasn't left behind for Misa or in his hand. Nobody else could get that, nobody who could be a Kira disciple, and nobody who could hand them to Light. And if I got outside to grab them my head would be blown off.

I groaned in pain as I flipped onto my stomach. Every time I moved, my stab wound was getting worse, more blood was oozing down my side. What did I have before the attack came? A minute? Thirty seconds? I wasn't leaving a whole snail trail of blood as I crawled on the floor, just spatters. That was good. I had to use my upper body entirely, and I was aggravating my wound more. That was real bad. Where -- where was the pole I hit Rem with?

Here. Here we go. Three slots on the top to clip ribbons to, and then one that the ribbon comes out of. Used to make barriers to guide people standing in line. It would have to work for me, too. I pulled out the fabric ribbon and tied it to my right hand. Pulled out as much slack as I could. If I got out of the doorway I would be shot... but I could chuck an improvised grappling hook into the SUV sitting right outside. Close my eyes, try not to look at the oozing neck stump that used to be Kira-Y. And slowly reel my pole in. Drag it over Isamu's remains, throw it and latch on again. The sheet in his hands was drenched in blood, impossible to use. Where were the cops? They should be here by now. I grabbed the blood-soaked case, and I clutched it close, like a violently ill child lying in the hallway holding a bucket. I hadn't been shot yet. So that was good.

I'm not going to die here. Misa isn't going to follow a blood trail to my corpse. She had the supplies, so I had to tear off my blouse sleeve -- I couldn't bend over enough to get a sock -- and I wadded it up and held it as hard as I could on my side, with my exposed, scarred arm. I was not going to die here whether or not the cops are coming in. I was going to text Misa, //HLP ARCD//, and she was going to follow a trail of blood I left crawling on the floor to find me, screaming like a little bitch.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

"No! Let me go! That's my HUSBAND! He NEEDS ME! You're, god damn it, you're supposed to do what I SAY! I don't CARE If I got shot! DO WHAT I SAY AND GO BACK AND SAVE HIM!" Nabiki is shrieking, struggling uselessly in her captor's grasp, holding out her hand as if to touch him one last time.

But there is nothing to do. With an echoing **BOOOM!** , the anti-materiel rifle fires again. She can't see Isamu, but she can see the spray of gore. See Rem vanish. He's gone. She goes limp in Officer Ogawa's arms, moaning. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Tears flow freely down her face. "You, you useless piece of SHIT! What are you even doing! He's DEAD! You let him DIE! HOW COULD YOU LET HIM DIE?" She pounds on him, to no effect. 

"Shh. Shhh." he whispers. "I have to get you to safety. We need to hide. The police are everywhere but they don't know what is happening right now. We need to grab our friends and get hidden. The police are on her side, and you're not in condition to flee."

"Isamu..." she sobs. "It's not right, it's not right, they can't take him from me... They can't, they can't! Why didn't Rem turn around? You, you should have done something! Where, where, give me my purse! Give me my purse! Amane dies for this! DEAD! She dies SCREAMING, you hear me?"

"We have to go, honey," Ogawa says. "You can't kill Misa. That page is gone. Burned."

"You did WHAT?" she screams, and tries to punch him again uselessly. "Why would you do that? Why? That was, that was my one piece of leverage! It's my revenge!"

"You said it would lock you out of heaven and hell!" he protests. "And one you do it, you have to do it again every 13 days, and there's not much paper left! I, I couldn't let you do that to yourself! What if it works by majority rules, and someone else put the last character in and you were on the hook? I can't let that happen! I have to watch out for you!" He grabs her wrists so she will stop hitting him. "We can get somewhere to hide if we move now, but we have to move NOW. You can mourn later!"

"Where... I need..." Her world is falling apart. Her life is over. She was shot in the thigh and doesn't even feel it. "They're gonna pay. They're gonna pay. They're all gonna pay," she mutters as she's led away. Obviously a traumatized victim, like so many others in the confusion, being led to safety by a responding officer.

### 
    
    
    * M I S A *

"Get down!" The patrol cop from before grabbed me by the neck and pulled me into a side street, up against the outer wall of a bookstore. "This is her!" he shouted over to the three other officers in the alley. Two had their guns drawn, and the last one looked younger than me, wearing a reflector vest like she was a traffic inspector. "You, JOCD! Miss Maruka... Marukabu... Miss Maru, this place is a warzone! We've got at least one sniper down the street! The American you were supervising, she fought some kind of, of, of, of some supernatural entity outside, made pursuit of the fleeing suspects on my bike, and she's inside that arcade, fighting at least one entity!"

"Please, do you know what is going on?" asked the traffic inspector. Then she started staring at me. "Wait, are you..."

"The actress? Yeah, I get that a lot," I said in my world-weary voice. "If she really joined Kira's team, that's like five reasons I have to be mad at her." My cop character hadn't heard the interview, see, that made it more believable we were separate people. And why be suspicious? Misa Amane is an actress, she doesn't do crazy dangerous things. "Stop putting on makeup, so people can see I'm ten years older than her too..." I mumbled. 

Watari was shooting and I didn't know from where. Naomi needed my help. Any inconsistency in my story would result in me being arrested for impersonating an officer and not getting help and not helping her and also being kidnapped and/or shot. It's not like improv where you aren't allowed to ever contradict what someone says. 

"I have no idea what is going on," I told them. "I thought miss Maki was here to deal with someone using a Japanese business to launder money for American gangs. She told me we had to split up, I grabbed some financial records, and apparently she fought a ghost? Or a demon? And there's a sniper too? Is the sniper also a ghost? How, how long has the FBI had anti-ghost units? I was wearing this vest because she insisted! I, I pilot a desk!"

I didn't know any more than they did, see! I don't need to say what I know. I couldn't contradict anything they knew. I was just an unimpressive person. If this was acting school I would be yelled at for not adding anything to the scene, but that's why I did it. 

"We don't know what the sniper is!" the beat cop said. He'd pulled his name tag off. Probably smart! "It took out Egawa's vehicle. But nobody ordered him, or IT, to do that, we have no idea where it is, and we have no idea where its loyalties lie. Everyone is to take cover until armored support arrives. EOD should come soon, and the SAT after that. We're supposed to just hunker down until then."

That was bad. That was really bad. EOD were the bomb guys. Bomb guys were in on it. They were going to shoot Naomi while she needed help. I had to get in there. Okay. Why did my character... no, why did Naomi's character need help? She was a monster hunting cop. Way cooler and faster and smarter than me. My character didn't know any of the details because she was a desk jockey. But I was carrying Naomi's stuff and her spare clothes. What did I have that could be what she needs... Did I have salt? There's something you do with salt in magic, but I didn't know if I had it right... No, I didn't know what she gave me! My ignorance is the whole point! It could be any sort of monster supplies for all I know, I don't have to detail them!

"I can't do that," I said. "I have no idea what she's doing but that woman is my responsibility as long as she's in Japan. She told me to hold all her stuff in this bag... there's some weird things in here I didn't ask too much about. If she deals with monsters... If she's not even FBI... she could have something in here we need. That she needs." I unshouldered the bag and held it out. Like I was giving him a chance to add to the scene, say something new. 

But he didn't. "I don't... I can't take anything in there. There was definitely a gunshot. Nobody saw what happened, but the thing went in there, and bullets went through it."

"She's my responsibility." I established myself as going in alone. This is in character. "I... Miss? Could you give me your hat and reflective vest? I don't want to be a victim of friendly fire." A traffic inspector had even less reason to be inspected for being Misa Amane by a hypothetical sniper. The Second Kira would have no problem sending a human shield, so if that was who Watari thought I was, he wouldn't be able to shoot me. And if he didn't think I was the Second Kira, then he wouldn't want to shoot me anyway!

The traffic cop looked at me. Real hard. And she nodded. Slowly, she unhooked her key ring, and she clipped it to the vest as she handed it to me. The keys to her mini car. She must have been a fan! Of course, my fans would have spent a lot more time looking at my face than Kira cultists would. Unless the fans were also Kira cultists. I kind of asked for that audience. 

I couldn't thank her or acknowledge her anyway. The three other guys here might have been on Kira's side. Any crowd might be a danger to me. I could just put on the vest and hat, nod to her, and walk out. No. Stop. What is the physical language of this scene? A traffic maid, scared, carrying bags. I wouldn't have them slung over my shoulders. I would have them... one in each hand, out at my sides, like I'm scared of them.

Nobody shot me. So I guess it worked. 

I jogged into the arcade, alone. There was so much crap in the windows and so many flashing lights, nobody could see inside. I went in the side; there was a car crashed at the front. Inside was a dead gangster and a trail of blood leading to the ticket counter.

No. She's not dead. It's not enough blood. She's... Yeah, she was gasping and moaning in pain. 

She was behind the counter, clutching her side, on top of a briefcase. "You scared me!" I yelled at her. "The bomb squad is coming. Four, five guys? They made a beeline for the hamburger building, so they're on Kira's side." I jumped, grabbed the top of a Capcom vs SNK cabinet, and I clambered on top of it. To stay inside the minimum range, Rem was dragged out of the ground until her intangible head was poking out. "Rem's following me, but she's at least cooperative," I said when I hopped back down. Once she got the signal to stop hiding, she hovered her way back up. Naomi drew her gun, and I don't blame her. "Easy! She might not take all of my orders, but she's not taking theirs anymore either." Rem didn't really seem to take much initiative. 

"Ah. Ah. Uh." Naomi had a way harder time finding the word than usual. Probably because she was bleeding, a lot. "Um." I'd kept up my First Aid certification ever since my second professional role, Young Drowning Victim in the Red Cross Society of Japan's instructional video First Aid for Teachers and Counselors. The certification course was me and Dad's only payment for the role, beyond getting my name in with the video production company, so we made sure we got value out of it. "Er..." The problem was that first aid is what you do to get ready for an ambulance to show up, and that wasn't happening. The second was that first aid for a bleeding wound was going to require her to not do a bunch of things she was totally about to do. Like move around. Probably run. "And... ah," But I had a first aid kit so I was going to do what I could and maybe later I could sew the wound up. 

"Hnnn... Body! Body!" she said with both relief and panic when she finally got the word.

"Body. Someone's body," I said. I wished I knew her well enough that I could guess on the first try what she meant, but that was unrealistic for a bunch of reasons. "There is a body here? Yes? The gangster? No. There is -- Oh, God!" I gagged when I directed my attention to the front door, and the decapitated corpse there. I felt my lunch coming up, but I held it down. "Okay. You need that. That's probably Isamu, so he has shit in his pockets. Right?" She grunted affirmatively. "Okay. Okay. Rem. I'm gonna walk up close to the door... backwards... and I want you to, to grab the body as soon as you can, and then we drag it back inside, and I don't get shot." The cops might have been going after Watari, but I don't know if they got him yet, or if they even had a chance. Rem nodded. I did what I said, until I heard the body start being dragged. Then I ran back to the counter. Shinigami can't carry humans for transport, but I guess corpses don't count. "Put him up on... No, God, don't do that," I said, trying not to look at the trail of blood leading to the awful gory stump of a man who had his head shot off. The Second Kira never had to look at this, maybe that's how she could be so remorseless. "Take, take off his jacket. Empty his pockets."

Rem complied. Robbing the dead wasn't against the rules either. I got around the other side of the counter again and I got on the ground. I unzipped my kit and got out my stuff. It would take a little while at least for the bomb squad to check the other building to see if we weren't hiding out. Maybe we could escape? Or maybe we'd be spotted with Rem, or maybe we'd be the subject of an APB and be unable to get away with a mini traffic ticket car that couldn't go over 50 KPH. Maybe we needed to fight here. Boy, I hoped not. I bound two ice packs to her knee with an Ace bandage, and I swabbed the blood off her injury with an alcohol pad while she hissed in pain. She was stabbed, it looked to be, like 10 cm, and stopped by the underside of her vest. "Rem!" I said. "Come here. I need, like, a nurse."

She stared at me with that one exposed eye. "I cannot participate in human medical care. I cannot directly act to prolong human life." 

"WHAT?" I snapped. "What the hell? You have spent the past two days leaping between bullets and Isamu Egawa!"

"That..." she paused. "Is different. My body is wider than his. I cannot predict trajectories. I do not know if I am stopping any bullet that would otherwise kill him."

Naomi and I both laughed even though it wasn't funny at all. "Oh, well, technically, that's fine! What, what is this? How do the rules work? Are shinigami like that Jewish guy who figured out he could wrap sacred string all over Manhattan and that made it okay to eat bacon?" I was pretty sure that was how that worked.

Naomi was looking up at me. Pushing up with her hands, like she was holding something. Mime. "Okay, pushing. Holding. Carrying. Carrying! Carrying you? Rem can't... Ah. Gotcha. Rem! Can you pick her up, and stay very still?"

She could. I grabbed the briefcase, stuffed the things in Isamu's pockets into my bag, and grabbed something that looked like it might be usable as a cane. Little pole thing. My shoulders were hurting from lugging all our shit around but it was not a good time to complain. Naomi needed me. I could do this, because she could do this. She pointed to the back -- the spare room, where they'd take breaks and keep the out of service machines. We had to go around... So I told Rem "Hold really still." And then I walked out from the ticket counter, dragging Rem with me. Their rules don't make any sense.

### 
    
    
    * R E M *

I put Naomi Misora down on the table in the rear room. Misa Amane began treating her injury, wiping up the trail of the awful writhing fluid that oozed out of the hole in her body. They were trapped here. The criminals would kill them if they escaped, and if they stayed. The repulsive Nabiki Egawa had certainly told them, out of my earshot, to murder Misa Amane and ensure the remains would never be identified. She assumed I would remain near her husband and not see it. The piece of Death Note upon which she wrote the threat to Misa Amane was destroyed. Had Taro Ogawa not done that, I would have stolen it myself.

Misa Amane. I wanted to save the last piece of Gelus. I didn't know if I saw what he did. If I am capable of love. I see something in her now. This incredibly fragile thing, this hollow person, made of spun glass. Appearing to be what others need. To fill the hollowness inside of them.

She had a weapon. She informed me it fires blanks. False bullets that don't exist. It was what she is.

Her savior was so frail. So broken. She could not communicate. Nor stand. Her injuries will only get worse. I didn't know what her lifespan was, or if she has a lifespan as shinigami understand it. I know she will die. She will be broken and dashed to pieces by this awful, irredeemable world. A world of Egawas. A world that could be cleansed by a thousand Kiras and still never be clean.

They talked. Misa Amane talked and Naomi Misora grunted and gesticulated. It was about the bomb squad approaching. Naomi Misora was excited when she heard one of them was wearing heavy blast armor. If Misa Amane interpreted her correctly, this meant that they were not police. They were the yakuza, the criminal organization. Vicious men who live to no purpose and no end but to take life from others. I saw eight of them. Changing clothing. Unmasked, unaware of my existence.

"He has done it," I whispered to myself. "He can kill a shinigami. He has surpassed us..."

Only now did I realize the extent of his manipulation. This was always his plan. I was too dangerous to be allowed to remain, I would threaten his plan. So he manipulated everything. He ensured Misa Amane would obtain ownership. That she would be placed in a life or death situation. And that I must die to extend her life. I will extend Naomi Misora's life as well, unavoidably. Perhaps he had a plan for her as well. 

He will ensure she recovers her memories. She will remember all her reasons for loving him, and vow to do anything for him. She will gain the shinigami eyes and lose half of her lifespan, so she can be useful to him. Half of what Gelus and I gave her.

She could never escape him. I suppose I always knew. My plan was to tell her of her place in Light's plan the moment we first met, but her negative companion was too close. She could never escape him. He surpassed Death. He will be the awful, charnel God of this terrible world. A wicked creature who smites those more wicked than he, those like the Egawas. But no shinigami will die for him. Maybe she can outlive him. Her and her companion can be happy together, when he withers away. Watching everything else decay around them, providing fleeting solace to the suffering of others. They will enjoy a new world he creates but will not occupy. 

"Rem. REM!" Misa Amane snapped her fingers at me. "Look, I'm, I'm sorry I yelled at you, okay? But we need your help. Can you, are you allowed to grab somebody if they get on me?"

Naomi Misora stood, one leg away from the ground, holding an improvised cane. Shaking. She was able to strike me, and dominate noncombatants. But these are the cruelest of the cruel. There were too many of them. I could only save Misa Amane, and I can only ensure she pays the least cost, that she moves most smoothly into her role. Out of danger from the Death Note, where my lifespan will protect her from the cruelty of Death. 

"I can help you," I told her. "But you must ask for something. You must tell me that you want my eyes back."

"I... What is this? What does that mean?" she asked. "Is this a trick? Are -- is this how you possess me?"

"It is not a trick. The cost has already been paid, and will be returned to you." Both statements were true. I took half of her lifespan. I would take half of her lifespan again. And I would give it back within two minutes. She had already told me she is willing to pay this price -- I need not explain in depth. "I cannot possess you. It will grant you superior vision, that's all. I cannot agree to help you if you do not take my eyes."

Naomi Misora appeared confused. She looked down. Over to Misa. Back to the table she bled upon.

"Well, if this was a plan to put a curse on me, it's really circuitous," Misa Amane said. "Naomi, if, if... Keep the Death Note paper away from me for a while," she said, throwing a bag onto the machine Naomi Misora was leaning on. "If I look like I am turning evil, I give you permission to, like, to break my legs or shoot me in the butt. Okay, I want your eyes back, and I don't agree to ANYTHING else."

The deed was done. Instantly. Lifespan flowed from her to me. "Gah!" she exclaimed, pitching her head forward. "You said I had superior vision, this is a curse! Everything is blurry!"

"You wear contact lenses," I told her. I remembered that. They corrected her vision. She was surprised last time as well. Naomi Misora had her back turned, creeping to hide behind the machine. Waiting to strike, and then die fruitlessly.

"Ah, shit, that's right," she muttered. Head still down. I wished I had time to explain the eyes and what they meant, but there was no time to spare, to acclimate her. She took the transparent lens off of the surface of her gelatinous eye. then the other. She blinked. "Wow, yeah. That is clearer. If I had the gun, that would... probably be more useful," she said. "Okay, now, come here--"

The front door opened. A voice came out. "Bomb squad! Everybody come out..."

Then another, "Daisuke, if there's anyone in here... I don't know if they can come out on their own, eh?"

Naomi Misora flicked off the lights in the back room. Misa continued her whispering. "Get over here to get in bullet stopping range!" she hissed. "If one of us gets grabbed, grab that guy and pick him up. Don't, you know, don't hurt him or transport him in any way, just pick him straight up!"

"Of course." None of the criminals would see me. They didn't when they changed clothing. They were told to waylay the explosive disposal police and take their uniforms, allowing them to act with impunity. I heard that portion of the plan. I didn't know who was who, but I knew who they could have been. I stood near the entrance. Inside a machine. Where I could write. All but one character of each of eight names. Then the last of each, to ensure I completed all in time.

"Come on out..." the one in the lead said. "We ain't gonna hurt ya..." His voice draws closer. It echoed from inside some kind of armor. "We know someone is bleedin' real bad..."

"They ain't here, you dumb prick," said a man behind him. Malice oozed from his words, malice and cruelty. A man who could happily crush Misa Amane. "We took way too long. If someone's fat ass hadn't insisted on wearing an explosive suit..."

"We're the bomb squad! Also, I am not a fan of being shot. Going after a shooting lady? Good idea to get lots of armor!"

This was the only way. I felt it when I complete the first name, and it grew as I complete the other seven. The deed was done. I felt... lighter. The illicit life I stole from humanity, being returned. I am relieved of my burden, the awful burden of existing. Only by passing it on to these fragile, helpless things.

"I'm sorry," I whispered as the men approached. I stepped into the center alley. "Just hide. You will be safe. Hide and... outlast him."

Naomi Misora glowered but said nothing. It didn't matter. Soon it would be over. The armored one came first through the door. "Anybody in here?" he asked. His collar was too high and rigid to look to either side.

I felt it. My fingertips. Turning to dust. She was useful to Light Yagami, she will be kept safe by him.

Naomi Misora flipped the machine cabinet forward. The man in armor fell beneath it instantly, grunting and struggling, unable to twist, lacking the range of movement to lift the weight. Misa Amane emerged, with her fake pistol. The man behind the armored one shouted "Shit!" at his fallen companion, and then... 

BLAM!

The pistol was fake, but she shot him so close the burst of flame touched his skin, and blood sprayed outward from him. Totally unprepared for an ambush, he fell backwards into the next man. She kept firing. Naomi Misora screamed in pain and fell forward to the entryway, weapon out, tears in her eyes, body concealed by the wall. With Naomi in place, Misa kicked the gun on the floor away from the armored man's hands. 

They were...

Misa Amane was fragile. Wasn't she? That was why you wanted to protect her, wasn't it, Gelus?

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

"Okay. I'm going to call that... mixed success," I said. I was lying. It was fantastic.

"We took out Isamu Egawa," I continued. "According to what Watari saw, Naomi Misora recovered his materials. If Nabiki had any extra material, she would have definitely used it to escape. As far as we can tell, she hasn't."

"However," Ryuzaki continued, "At least half of the Yotsuba Prosperity Council are dead, undoubtedly by the work of Isamu, and more still could have died without our knowledge. And on top of this, Misa has recovered the power to view names by seeing faces. Five criminals, disguised as a bomb squad, carrying no identification, died of heart attacks when they assaulted her. Two more died of heart attacks while bound to a staircase, and one was shot in the heart. Nabiki Egawa, as well as Misa and Naomi escaped... despite the presence of our men."

"Hey!" Aizawa snapped. "I was not going in on her without support from the bomb squad. When our targets ran out after we heard gunfire, Misa was screaming 'Oh my God it's eating them someone help', and everyone was way more worried about that. I couldn't get to her in time and if I shot her, my cover as an SAT gets blown. So does my head. Off." Ryuzaki glowered at him. 

"Ryuzaki's not in a position to reprimand you, Aizawa!" I said. "That's my job, and I'm not going to. You clearly made the right call. You didn't provoke Naomi to kill any of the police and by staying undercover you were able to get Wedy extracted. Everyone got out safely. The only additional casualties were Isamu Egawa, professional violent criminals, and one patrolman who tripped and broke his jaw. Considering the amount of lethal force being swung around? The amount of time we had to set up? The fact there was some kind of violent supernatural entity swinging around? A small gain with no loss is an exemplary performance." Most importantly: they got me what I needed. 

"Hmph." Ryuzaki stared away for a second. "There was a man in a bombproof suit there. His face covered. How did Misa kill him? Did the rest take off their masks?"

"I've got some theories on that, but just theories." Too suspicious if I already had a story for the crazy supernatural shit. "Whichever one of them did it, it could have been a test. Some of them were shot before their heart attacks. If it was a test of the Kirascope, maybe Naomi used a few bullets to keep everyone standing still for it. I doubt Naomi had much trouble taking out common thugs, whose main experience is threatening shopkeepers, and pulling off their masks. That bombproof suit probably tips over easily."

"Misa is clearly deriving her sense of morality from Naomi's presence," Ryuzaki said. "She is emotionally invested in being a kinder, gentler killer. She's not opposed to killing, as we know Naomi has no problem with murdering for revenge. Perhaps she wanted to verify these were criminals, and not police. She doesn't want Kira to make mistakes. Then, once unmasked, why not use your Kirascope anyway?"

"Maybe it had something to do with what she said about fighting 'a Kira'," Mogi pitched in. "Could be related to the strange dust pile the cops say they found. Residue? Or maybe they breathed it in."

"We're going to want masks that are difficult to yank off," I said. "Probably with breathing protection. It may not have gone according to plan, but we're closing the noose, people. Every encounter we have brings us closer."

Nabiki and Isamu left behind the Note pages as bait, to split up Misa and Naomi. Torn carefully out of the Death Note's cover, and out of their possession. I ordered Watari to take the shot when Nabiki wasn't touching any piece of the Note, ensuring Rem would snap to Misa due to that bracelet the officers reported. Then she'd get into a situation where Rem had to die to save her useless life. Now a bunch of guys threatening Misa and Naomi were obviously Kirafied. Nabiki couldn't use the Death Note because her supply of paper, if she has any, was so limited she can't use it for fear of eventually killing herself with the 13-day rule. Her only option was to go get the backup.

Everything went just as planned.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

"No anesthesia!" Nabiki screams. "It's bad for the baby! I'm not losing his daughter, do you hear me?" She's already hissing as she slaps her thigh. "Dig the bullet out already!"

The doc looks around in confusion, toward the masked chairman. "Miss Egawa," says the chairman. "Your situation has changed since you last partook of this man's services." And not only because now they are in the basement of a brothel. "I think it would be perhaps for the best if we took you to a hospital."

"I go to a hospital, you get off Kira's good side!" she hisses.

"I do not appear to be there already. His subordinate is dead. So are eight of my men." He doesn't need to take his mask off to show his dissatisfaction. "Our relationship with you has become very negative, very quickly."

"Amane. It was Amane. Do you remember how nobody was supposed to kill her if anyone could find out?" she says, even through the pain she is lecturing. "She broke the rules. You can kill her all you want, now."

"Perhaps being involved with miss Amane is something we don't want to take on," he says.

"Then let me do it. There's another notebook!" she blurts. Taro is just holding her hand. He has no idea what to say here. "It's, it was my copy. I never used it because I never needed to. You get me to my notebook, and you have Kira's friend for life. But I'm the only one who can use it."

"And... if this goes as badly as things went tonight?" the chairman asks.

"Then you probably want to kill us!" she hollers. "Which you'll do anyway if you don't help us, but you want to take our bodies far out of town so it's harder to find us. Taking our bodies out is really easy if those bodies are cooperating! Like, say, to a forest. Where my notebook is buried. You'll go fifteen minutes out of your way to see if it shakes out. If it doesn't, why, you can just stick us in the hole we dug up! It won't be any work at all!"

"...That isn't how most people speak to me," the chairman finally says. 

"Most people don't have bullets in them that need to get yanked out!" she snaps. "You can cut off my pinky for impropriety when this is done! I don't need it to write down Misa Amane's name, and the names of anyone you want dead! If she helps L trace my corpse back to you, impropriety will be the least of your problems!"

"...Treat her. She'll take some of us to her notebook tomorrow." He sighs. "Try not to scream too loud. Not everyone in this building knows what is going on."

She wraps Taro's sock around his belt and clamps her mouth around it, never breaking eye contact.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

Rem was dead. We thought. Misa grabbed as much dust as she could in an empty water bottle, and the notebook laying on top of it. We had to go. We escaped in the chaos, and went exactly as far as a traffic-ticket minicar can take us before the speed was outweighed by conspicuousness. Then we took a subway. We weren't talking much. 

Not until we found a motel. Misa was kind of far-away the whole time until she realized "Oh! I should... Pull up your shirt. I need to check your wound." 

I did. The bed was small and the bedspread scratchy but it was cheap, and we'd need to stretch our money and Isamu's wallet as much as we could. Misa pulled off my blood-soaked gauze and inspected, while I looked at what Isamu had. A locked phone, and a locked briefcase. I needed equipment to get into his phone and that required me to be able to type code, so unless Misa also minored in computer science that was going to be off limits. But his briefcase locked with a key. No doubt Nabiki had it, but locks are pickable without language.

Our phones went dead, by the way. 24 hours after Ryuzaki thought Misa 'killed' Light. Probably had a waiting period for security reasons, so they can't be shut off as an attack. It was fun while it lasted. 

"Yeah, a bit of it ripped open again... you're going to have to sit still." I leaned back, and she dabbed the injury with an alcohol pad. Cleaned off the dried blood, before applying a fresh bandage. We couldn't sew it closed because we didn't really know how to do that safely. This'd have to do. 

"Naomi, I..." Her words caught in her throat. "About what happened there. Rem, killed those guys who were attacking us. And she died to do it. She, uh, she told me that was how it worked. So she, before she died, had to..."

Rem talked about some deal, like it wasn't a big thing. Something she could give back. It was for... "Eye?"

"Yeah. Yeah. The eyes." She wasn't looking at me. "I can see really well now. Way better than my contacts... I can see your name, Naomi. Everybody's. I can see... every person we saw the face of, on the way over. Everyone has their name hovering... above their face... and then some numbers underneath it." She was chewing her lip. Breathing heavier.

"Uh. Ah... Number?" I asked while I pointed at myself. Then her.

She nodded. She turned to face me for a second. "//NAOMI MISORA -E1B90//. You... Nobody else I saw has a negative number. Yours is counting up a couple times per minute. Or down, I guess, but it counts through some English letters too. Nobody else had any letters. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I don't have a number at all. Just //ENAMA ASIM// in the mirror. Nobody else didn't have a number, either." Her lip quivered.

"This is... These are her eyes, right? I had them before. She gave them back to me," she said with shaky voice. "I had these... when I was the Second Kira. I can see people's names... so I can write them down. And kill them." 

This was big. This was heavy. The Kirascope we were so concerned with... Misa just had to ask for it. Rem held it for her while she was gone. It wasn't an object like we thought, it was just part of her. Because someone, someTHING, thought she wanted them back.

I sat up, carefully, trying not to aggravate my wound. I saw the tears welling in Misa's eyes. So I held her. She whimpered. "I'm afraid, Naomi. I don't want it. I don't want to be her. I think it was easy to be her."

Like so many other times, I wished I had the words. The subtlety, the nuance. To say it's okay to not feel sad about defending yourself. To say that her fear is good, because it is what allows her to try and not be the Second Kira. To say how much I trust and admire who she has made herself and how much she has changed. I wiped a tear from her eye. I pulled her into my lap on the edge of the bed. Laced her hands into mine. I just said "Love."

"I... I..." She was searching for something. Important. Building up the courage to say it. But she couldn't. She said "I love you too, Naomi," which made me feel warm, and takes some courage too. Whatever she was going to say, I trust it wasn't tactically relevant, and so it could wait. "But, like... I'm the one who loves you. If I... If I turn into someone different... she won't."

"Uh..." What is it she was talking about, the thing? "Possess?" Rem didn't seem to do it. I didn't know how likely it was.

"Y--yeah. Yeah," she said. "If I get possessed. If I turn evil. It would be really nice if you, like, only shot me in the butt and stopped me and got the evil out of me again. And, like, I give you permission. To straitjacket me and blindfold me and strap me to a strappy thing, in case part of that is what... g-got the thing that possessed me out." Then she looked up at me. She could see my name and what sounded like a hexadecimal code floating above my face, and her eyes only looked different in that she wasn't wearing contacts. "But maybe you can't do that. If I'm, if I'm going to hurt someone. Make an awful mistake. Get away and help Light be Kira. Then you have to kill me, Naomi. You have to promise, if I turn evil again, and you can't get me safely, then you'll kill me."

What could I say? That's not gonna happen? I have no idea what makes that happen. I'm not going to let it, if I have anything to say about it. But this... I don't want to do it. But I don't want to lie. I need her. I need her so much. I need to feel her touching me like this. I say "Uh," of course. "Uh... Hard. Hard."

She gave that nervous chuckle, laughing when she really doesn't want to. "I mean, I think I've done a good job handling myself, but I'm still mostly an actress and you're basically the Terminator. You could kick my ass inside-out." Then her hand went to her mouth and she gasped in shock as she realized how off she was. "Oh! Oh. Oh, oh God, I'm sorry. I wasn't -- I'm not making fun of you!" I jostled her a little. Let her know I was fine. Keep going. "I'm... I know it's hard. I really, I love you too. But I know you're strong. I know you can do it. If I become the Second Kira again, you know what has to be done."

Could I? Could I lose the person I loved again? I... I don't know. And Misa could probably feel that. But she was right. This was important. Not just to her. What else could I promise to do? "Umm... Try. Try."

"Try your best, okay?" she asked me with a bit of a sniffle. "I know you, you know, you won't let anyone have me but you. Because, because I have your blood and everything. But just in case... just try your hardest, right?"

I nodded. Slow. Slow enough to know what I was doing. And her body relaxed in my grip. She leaned her weight away from my bad leg. "I'll... Maybe I can get rid of Kira vision. Or maybe we can figure out a weakness. Maybe it's like eye lasers, you know? We make some special anti-Kira glass. And I walk around with cool laser glasses all the time." That was what I liked to hear. Misa happy, charging forward. I chuckled. 

"A fan of mine helped us escape," she said. "I don't know how clear I was on that. The traffic ticket lady. I think she recognized me, so she gave me her keys. I'm, you know, I'm really gonna miss acting. It was a lot of work sometimes, but it was fun. And I guess I touched people. Looking back on it... a lot of people loved me, and I don't think I saw it. But I'm never gonna work in this town again."

No glumness! I jabbed her and grunted. She can, she could go to the place... ugh, what was it, the place I pretended... "America!"

"Hollywood?" She laughed in disbelief. "Naomi, you know what Dad said they called a Japanese top-ranking movie star who moves to Hollywood? A waitress. I'd need to learn English really good, and I'd need speech therapy after that, and there's twenty Misas for every Misa-shaped role..."

"Ahh... Nngh!" I grunted in frustration. The thing, the thing she did and I couldn't! I didn't know. I just mimed myself talking.

"Talk. Talking. Radio? No, radio's dead. Voice, oh, voice work?" she said with dawning realization. "I could... Maybe I could do that. Yeah. I could be in some cult classic to start, and get a devoted fanbase by the time I voice an iconic franchise role. And when people dig up I was heavily involved in the Kira case, it won't even matter, because Hollywood will be mad at something else. And Earth will probably be getting invaded by aliens or something dumb." She smiled weakly. I smiled back. I can do that just fine.

"I know it's early, but... I'm just really, really tired," she said. "I'm not feeling well. I'm cold, too. I'm just gonna go to sleep here..." She squirmed out of my grasp and laid herself down beside me. "And, you just wake me up if you need me to do something. I'll sleep in these clothes so we can go in a hurry. They're already pretty much ruined."

I brushed a strand of hair from her face, gently put the crappy scratchy blanket over her. "Uh. Ahhhhh... Nnnn..."

"Goodnight to you too, Naomi," she said as she closed her eyes.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

The Dangozaki service area, essentially a truck stop, features refueling stations, restaurants, and shopping for food, supplies, and essentials. This is not why Nabiki Egawa has her escort stop there, but it's what she says. They need shovels, and they need to stay off of trains where there's no safe exit.

Dangozaki lies right before the point where the Chuo Expressway splits in two. It leads to either Yamanaki, where Nabiki was told her escort they are going. Or the base of Mt. Fuji, where Nabiki is actually going. 

The real feature of Dangozaki that interests Nabiki is that there is a 2006 Ford Fusion outside it -- rare to see an import automobile in Japan, rarer still to see it in hello-officer red, very easy to pick out of the parking lot. The keys to that automobile are hidden behind the iced energy drinks in the refrigerator at the gas station. The yakuza escorts are, quickly, located somewhere that Nabiki and Taro are not. 

Nabiki hops into the passenger seat as Taro keys the remote-start. "Go, go!" she shouts. "He left the shit in the back seat, we don't know how much time we have!" 

She throws her crutch and purse onto the pile of camping supplies in the back seat. Chairs, tents, a stove, jerky, bug spray -- and shovels, of course. Nabiki chows down on the meat bun Ogawa hands her, and he lays tread on the way out. 

They are not followed.

Nabiki sweeps the crumbs off her stomach and leans the passenger seat as far back as it will go. "I feel terrible," she says, pulling a cold compress from her purse and laying it over her face. "Just get us to the forest, all right?"

The compress over her eyes covers her as she weeps.

Taro is more soft-spoken than Nabiki, here. And he's further forward. Were one to be listening from a purse's eye view, they would hear her responses, but not his questions.

"No!" she barks. "Well, maybe. I have no idea. All I know is Kira told us that it was valuable to whatever his plan was. So we're basically going to have to hold it hostage. For all I know it could be another notebook. But Kira won't get whatever it is until we get what we want."

The road hums.

"No, I'm not -- I'm not mad at you. I have a headache. Being pregnant and having my goddamned leg shot probably have something to do with that. Normal people get to stay in hospitals and rest this kind of shit off. You -- yeah. Yeah. I know. You were looking out for me."

She shudders involuntarily. 

"I know you love me. Yeah. I'm really glad." The insincerity burns her lips. Perhaps he chooses not to notice.

No radio. No music. Just stewing in silence. 

"It doesn't... It doesn't feel like he's gone, you know? Like we're going to come back home, and he'll be there, wondering where I was this whole time." She laughs. It's not funny. "We don't have a home any more. I slept in a hooker's bed last night. I swear to whatever God exists, I'm going to make these people pay. All of them." She hisses to herself. "L, and Amane, and your mute -- oh, no, I'm sorry, your, ah, your, ah, the, uh, your, your APHASIAC freak with the stupid name. All of you are gonna beg me for your lives. You took Isamu. You took my, my, you took him..." She sobs.

He lays his hand on her thigh to console her. She recoils like it's a hot skillet against her flesh.

More driving in silence.

"...The hell do you know. You're some kind of zombie anyway. Why did you destroy my page, huh? Because you know what's good for me better than me? Why did, why did you pull me away? Huh? That's not what I wanted! Isamu was right there! You could have saved him, but you chose not to! You could have pulled him to safety. You could have held up a shield. You could have jumped in front of the God damn bullet but you didn't do any of that! Huh? I thought you were supposed to love me!"

She gnashes her teeth together.

"YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT WAS WHAT I MEANT!" she bellows.

He clearly has no rejoinder. He has no voice here. He mostly exists for her to yell at. Maybe if he takes enough abuse she will see how much he loves her. 

"Turn on the radio," she finally says. "Find where the hick music station is. I want something to take my mind off of, of, all of this."

He searches the dial until they find caterwauling. It's real authentic caterwauling, too.

She laughs silently again. "You hated this shit, didn't you. I'm sorry, honey. I'll have to buy some albums like you like. And I'll listen to them all day. Tales, Tales from Topographic Oceans, right? The songs were so long, they could only put one of them per record. And nobody appreciated it in its time. I'm sorry I never found time to listen. I will now... I'll, it will be like you're with me."

She says nothing more as they drive. Commercials come and go. Cars whiz by in the other direction. No sign they were followed. 

Fuji looms ever closer in the distance, until they go alongside it. 

"Owner of a lonely heart..." she sings softly to herself, out of sync with the beat on the radio. "Owner of a lonely heart..."

Taro must not know the song, or must not hear her. It's much better than the owner of a broken heart, but that is not relevant any more. 

Fuji watches them circle it. Fuji won't talk and neither will they.

At last, they arrive at their destination. The car rolls to a stop at the toll booth, and then at its parking space. 

"No, it's all here. Help me get up, my crutch is back there. And my purse."

They go forth on their dark mission. To find something to hold hostage for Kira. They leave the car behind. 

A minute passes.

Two.

The emergency latch on the trunk pops.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

Isamu wrote a very nice, very detailed story, about a man who wants to drive out to the countryside to get away from Yotsuba, rents a car that can't be traced to him, stops at the truck stop to buy camping supplies, goes back for an iced coffee, accidentally leaves his keys in the drink cooler, is struck by the beautiful silliness of it all, and kills himself in a ditch where nobody will find him for days. Too bad the real Geraldo Coil lives in Santa Monica and has a face that could at any moment open up and disgorge a train of Hieronymus Bosch devils, completely unlike the handsome pina colada apparition that Isamu met. 

I didn't catch everything she said, but given how the entry from Isamu's briefcase specified shovels, I was pretty sure they're here to dig something up, and I knew it's something Kira wanted. I jostled Misa awake; she'd been sleeping back here for a few hours even before the car started moving, wrapped in the emergency blanket to stop shivering. No idea when the two would show up today, after all. I was reading a light novel by pen-light, a shoujo-ai romance. Kind of hoping that I would read about someone questioning her sexuality so I could go "Oh, that, that was the step I skipped, that's why this feels so weird!"

But they hadn't even kissed when I was over halfway through. And then I had to stop reading so I could listen to our targets speak, and get ready to shoot if they popped the trunk.

"Ugh, my neck feels awful, I slept on it funny," Misa said as she got out of the trunk. She stretched and tried to pop her neck again before leaning back in to help me out. "Is your leg okay? Man, I had the weirdest dream. They were making a movie about our lives, only we got to this part, like what we're doing now, and I couldn't tell them what happened next. So then our characters in the movie, started making a movie about their lives. And they didn't have any actors so we had to come on to play each other, and then you couldn't fit in my straitjacket."

I giggled politely as she helped me to my feet and handed me my shitty pharmacy-checkout cane. 

"I know, it's crazy, right? A straitjacket is one size fits all," Misa said. She slammed the trunk closed once all our crap was out of it. "So where are we, anyway?" she asked.

Mount Fuji loomed in the distance, and before it, there was a great forest. A path led from the parking lot, past a ranger station, into the sea of trees. A sign at the entrance implored, in English and Japanese, //LIFE IS A PRECIOUS THING GIVEN TO US BY OUR PARENTS. ONE MORE TIME, JUST THINK ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU, YOUR PARENTS, SIBLINGS, AND CHILDREN. DON'T FEEL THE NEED TO SUFFER ALONE; CONFIDE IN A FRIEND OR ONE OF US.//

Aokigahara. The suicide forest at the base of Mount Fuji. A place like this might be sacred to shinigami, beings that called themselves gods of death. Or maybe Light just hid something here because it was out of the way and, empirically speaking, it was known to be a place where you could do things without being watched or discovered for a while. 

Misa got quiet once we stepped onto the path. Above us, the trees vanished into fog. There were no birds, no frogs, nothing to damage the stillness. The silence weighed down like a heavy blanket. Informational stands informed us the floor of Aokigahara was volcanic rock and soil, so rich in nutrients it led to the forest being very thick and the undergrowth dense. It was creepy. Misa and I switched sides, so she couldn't help support my bad side, but I could hold her hand. All we could hear as we went deeper into the woods was our footsteps... and, when I strained to listen, the straining "click" of the metal locking pin used to adjust Nabiki's crutch to her size, as she put her weight on it. Click. Click. Click. Moving deeper into the forest. But not as fast as us.

Life is a precious thing given to us by our parents. But it's the only valuable we can't lock away. Most people don't choose to throw their own out. It gets taken from them. Usually by the cruelties of Fate, and sometimes, sometimes it's taken by someone else. Not much we can do to hold on to it.

I heard someone say once that since everyone's going to die and not come back, let's all just try to do our best with the time that we have. I think that's a fine sentiment when you're talking about dying of disease, or accident, or old age. When it comes to someone taking your life from you? I feel like 'oh well, let's just do our best' is not the take-home lesson from this story. You should try to stop them. Failing that? You should make them pay. Maybe I can't stop everyone from hurting me if they like. But I have the right to be someone who it's not okay to hurt. Let's all do our best to stop people from hurting us. And if we don't, let's all do our best to make sure they pay dearly for the privilege.

Click. Click. Click. We gained on them quickly, even with my injuries, I just had more experience walking with assistance. We had to slow down to make sure they wouldn't spot us before they got to the burial site. Stopped, drank some bottled water and some Overdrive Orange energy drink. Both of us were parched; we'd not drank anything all day so we wouldn't have to pee while in the trunk. Walked some more. Click. Click. Click. 

I don't begrudge Misa being thankful that Light killed the man who killed her family. As a law enforcer, I should have probably chastised her about how revenge was not justice, but -- screw it. A justice system that lets someone get away with that because he knows the right people is a bad justice system that does not deserve respect. When we met, Misa thought what Light, what Kira did to me was a one-in-a-billion outlier, even though she felt compassion, and agreed that it should not happen. What she didn't realize, I think, was what an outlier she was. Kira used his power to kill someone who had completely escaped responsibility for his actions. 

Kira barely ever did that. The number of his victims who 'escaped justice' only to be killed by the light of Kira could be counted on your hands. Kira just found thirty or so people a day who had already been caught and, knowing nothing about them because there aren't enough hours in the day, decided they should be punished with death instead. A reverse-governor anti-commuting sentences. The grand edict of the god of the new world: keep all of our existing laws and enforcement, just change the penalties for the ones I notice to death. That's the imagination of someone who cannot imagine anything but his lust for power. He'd never kill anyone like Koreyoshi Kitamura and Walter Sorenson, he doesn't care enough to dig deep into what they did.

It was only just 1 PM but the forest was dark. The fog blocked the sunlight, and the trees grew taller and thicker. The pace and tone of the clicking changed as Nabiki left the path, walking over the uneven forest ground. I heard her slip and Taro catch her a couple of times. Click-ick. Click-ick. Click-ick.

Of course Kira had worshippers. Most in Japan, where he was headquartered, but around the world too. Judging by the magazines from back home, Kira was going to decide the 2008 election, and both parties were scrambling to find a candidate who had the right Kira opinions despite not knowing what those should be. Did I hate them? Yeah, I guess. I understood why it happened though. You know in the back of your mind that someone can take your life at any time and there's nothing you can do about it. You cover it up and you ignore it and you pretend everything is great and it eats at you whenever you get reminded. Then a huckster comes along promising to take that fear away, forever. Of course lots of people are going to eat it up. Not going to look too closely at what he does when what he says is so glittering and beautiful.

The clicking stopped. We kept moving. Soft noises of talking, of leaves being rustled around. We kept going. There was a clearing up ahead, at the feet of the great standing trees. I'd say it was 'watched' by them but the trees couldn't see through the fog. Taro was pushing through the leaves carpeting the floor. Misa and I crept around the edge of the clearing, staying out of sight.

Isamu's briefcase held seven pages of paper, from what Misa told me was the Death Note. One was half-covered in names in meticulously-copied shaky handwriting, and the opposite side had all the entries to kill off the Prosperity Council in much less meticulous handwriting. All of the pages had directions photocopied onto them: //1. WRITE A CRIMINAL'S NAME WHILE THINKING OF THEIR FACE, AND KIRA WILL KILL THEM. 2. WRITE A TIME OR DATE WITHIN 40 SECONDS OF THE NAME, AND KIRA WILL KILL THEM AT THE SPECIFIED TIME. 3. ONCE THE PAPER RUNS OUT OF SPACE OR 13 DAYS PASS FROM YOUR LAST NAME, KIRA WILL KILL YOU. 4. PRAISE KIRA.// There was also a graphic that I think was supposed to be Rem, but it had the quality of a fifth-generation mimeograph. It could have been a sad starfish. The crappy quality gave it a very underground punk aesthetic, because of course Kira supporters would want to think they are underdogs.

Clever plan on Light's part. He wanted to have L's access to information to kill more people and gain more power. I don't know how he found Isamu to begin with, but he was going to catch Eba with these sheets on her, and establish Kira was handing them out to disciples, and he could be chasing him forever. Then he can keep killing and hunting a plausible ghost. After how terrible Isamu'd been for him, I doubted he planned to actually give active pages to anyone else before he had them killed.

Taro started to dig. I couldn't attack yet, they might have got the location wrong. But it didn't take long to confirm it; whatever it was wasn't buried very deep. Of course. Misa's not much of a digger, and it was meant for her. The moment we heard him say "I found something! It's like a shoebox!" both of us stepped from behind the tree with our weapons drawn. 

"Okay," said Misa, all business, hand steady with her blank pistol. "Step away from the box. Both of you put your hands behind your heads. And get down on your knees. Don't open the box."

Nabiki scowled at Taro with disappointment and betrayal. If she was closer I would have kicked her mouth inside-out. I didn't say a word. I didn't want her laughing at me when she should be terrified and maybe feeling remorse. She put up her hands and knelt, and so did Taro. Her crutch fell to the ground beside her. 

"You bastards. You followed us," she spat. "You already killed my husband. You're just determined to ruin my life, aren't you?"

"Lady, after what you did to that man, you don't deserve one at all!" Misa spat. "You are an evil person and you think we're going to feel sorry for you?" She shook her head to clear her thoughts. "You talked to Rem. You know what she can do. //NABIKI EGAWA 72011009// and //TARO OGAWA 38769727//. Do you, do you see those too? What do they mean?"

"You took the eye deal and you didn't even ask what it did?" Nabiki laughed bitterly. "At least you're going to die young so you don't have to screw up for much longer. Do you even know you spent half your lifespan for those?"

I approached Taro to bind his arms and legs. I had a stab wound and a knee that still objected strenuously to me bending it, but if and when he started something I would be better off than Misa. 

"I already paid for them," Misa deadpanned. "She said she was giving them back. What do they mean?"

"She's not even here. She probably died trying to save you from your own stupidity," Nabiki fumed. "A useless bit of eye candy and a crippled freak took away the sweetest man in the whole world."

Yup. There it was. Not her insulting my disability, Taro jumping at me. Making a heroic stand. I pivoted on my cane out of his path and helped guide his momentum to keep flying past me and land facedown in the knobbly volcanic dirt. I put my boot into the small of his back and I yanked his arms up to tie them. Simple and easy. He wasn't thinking clearly enough to fight like he'd been trained. 

"All right, both of you freeze!" Nabiki shouted. While Taro jumped at me, she must have gone into her purse. She was holding the black cover for the Death Note and a stick lighter, the kind you use to ignite a grill. "Nobody god damn move! You remember all those people you slapped with your sheet so they could see Rem? You didn't know that if this sucker gets destroyed, every single human being who touched it dies. Me, you, the cops, all those pedestrians. It's on its last legs already, but it's still got the spine, see? I light this baby up and I take all of you with me. Now back off."

What? That was impossible. Wouldn't Rem have mentioned it? There was a lot she didn't mention. The rules for the Death Note seemed to have plenty of holes, but that seemed to have nothing to do with what the book did. She could be making it up... Could there be a notebook Light never touched, so he was safe to hand it out?

I finished tying Taro's wrists in the same motion I stepped off of him. Just in case. Misa said what I was thinking. "I don't believe you. You're making that up."

"You can believe whatever you want, honey," Nabiki said, "but it's right here on the back cover. In plain black and white." She held it up with one hand, waving her stick lighter with the other, holding the inside back cover outward.

"Hold it still! Let me see, you're wiggling it around!" Misa said, and Nabiki was probably surprised given how she was like 10 meters away. She squinted. "Okay, it says... //IF THE PERSON USING THIS NOTE FAILS TO CONSECUTIVELY WRITE NAMES OF PEOPLE TO BE KILLED WITHIN 13 DAYS OF EACH OTHER, THAT PERSON WILL DIE.// And //IF YOU DESTROY THE DEATH NOTE BY TEARING IT UP OR BURNING IT, ALL HUMANS WHO HAVE TOUCHED THE DEATH NOTE WILL DIE.//" Damn. Her vision really was good. 

I put my boot onto Taro's back again, just as he was starting to wiggle. I bound another zip tie around his elbows, to make it harder to bend them. Nabiki shouted. "You! Stop that! I ordered you to step back!"

"No." Misa was more glum, looking away. "Set it on fire if you want. It's not going to work."

"H-How can you take that risk?" The lighter ignited. The flame danced close to the cardboard cover.

"Because the other rule there is fake too," Misa said. "I didn't... I went a lot more than 13 days without killing someone."

Nabiki's face fell. She dropped what she was holding. "No..." she whispered as she realized her ace in the hole was useless. And that I was approaching with my gun.

"No!" she yelped. "Don't, don't kill me! Don't kill my child! I -- I know! You must have a notebook, right? The paper from my husband's briefcase, that's how you knew we'd be here, because I told him to burn it and he didn't!" Lady, you were with him the entire time. "You can use it, use it on me! Just, just write that I don't care about anything but walking to the hospital and getting my baby delivered by C-section. Then, then you can say I get tortured to death! Right? But our child, she doesn't have to pay for this, does she?"

Misa looked to me, and I nodded. My bag had all the Death Note paraphernalia we carried, and she still appreciated me keeping it out of her hands. Rem's notebook was full of names in crisp, meticulous handwriting, with notations in Greek. But the back page was blank. So I pulled out Rem's notebook, showed it to her, and started scribbling. 

Nabiki didn't move. Her face got more and more bright as she saw I was complying with her plan, peaking when I capped my pen and began to wait. She waited a couple minutes, looking around. And then her face went blank. Her features slack, her eyes dull. "I'm sorry," she said, "there's something I have to do."

I held up the back page of Rem's notebook, to show them both the picture of Doraemon I'd drawn on it. Even though the eyes weren't very good, it clearly wasn't text.

"...no..." Nabiki muttered under her breath.

"Nice try," said Misa, being charitable. "If we weren't already immune and figured that people would get immunity however they could, then... well, we would have figured out anyway."

Nabiki was crying now. On the dirt, face in her hands. No more tricks. No more ways to be ruthless. Just the cold realization the ride was over. "Why do you people do this to us?" she sobbed. "Why? We just wanted a nice life in a safe place! That's all! Why is that so wrong? Why don't we deserve to be happy?"

I advanced, gun aimed at her. She was an awful person. A bottomless pit of a person. Who could look at the murder and rape she committed and sincerely ask 'why is that so wrong' because it didn't CLICK for her that other people existed apart from her needs. And it never would. Someone who thought she had infinite entitlement to everything and everyone, and demanded violence from others with a clear conscience. Human life would be in some miniscule but tangible way cheapened as long as she got to call herself a member of it. 

Taro rolled over in the dirt. "Please," he said. "Please don't kill her. I know she's done some bad things, but, you don't understand. She's not a bad person. She means so much to me, she only, if you only could see in her what I see... She, she deserves a second chance, doesn't she? She only wanted to do good, right?"

I was nauseated. Every plaintive word out of his mouth was another violation. More proof of her wickedness. But... could I execute her in front of him? He would still suffer. Maybe he wouldn't be able to pick apart his feelings from the falsehoods for a while. He would, he would be in agony. Was it my place to kill her?

No. I can't kill her. It's wrong. I can't bring myself to do it.

He should be the one to kill her. I can't, I can't rob him of his chance. That's why. 

I holstered. Taro breathed a sigh of relief, and Nabiki didn't notice or care, sobbing in self-pity. I snapped my fingers and motioned Misa over as I grabbed Nabiki's arms and zip-tied them together. She didn't respond. She was just moaning. "Everything always turns out this way... You gave us that notebook on purpose..." No resistance to tying her ankles, either. Or Misa gagging her. 

When I dislocated her shoulder, though, she screamed and writhed around. I could not stay to see her get into custody, and I wasn't taking the risk she escaped. Misa recoiled at the sight, but when she saw I wasn't just hurting her for the sake of pain, she softened a bit.

All right. Now there was a box here that Kira wanted. Wrapped in paper, it wasn't locked -- looked like a shoebox of some kind. Lid came off easily. Inside... a black notebook. //ARVC-5// written on the front, or something close to it. I took off a glove and gingerly picked it up.

This was it. Definitely a Death Note. First pages filled with names in strange handwriting, in many different languages. The ones I could read were about people dying peacefully, not suffering, reconciling their final business.

"Crap. That's another Death Note, huh?" Misa said. "G-give it to me for a second. I'll just hold the cover, but if this one has a different Kira, I need to see her too."

I held the notebook closed and extended it to her. She grasped it... and her fingers locked. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she started convulsing. Flecks of spittle gathered at the corners of her mouth. Was she having a seizure? Was this shinigami magic, and if so why didn't I have a seizure?

Her legs went limp and I was barely able to grab her before she hit the ground, and I knelt and pulled her into my lap. She curled into the fetal position and her hands clawed at her temples. Finally, she puked up the remnants of the single hiker's energy bar she'd allowed herself today, and then kept dry-heaving. What the Hell was happening? God, what do I do?

There was a whoosh, of great black wings stirring the formerly tranquil air. I looked up. A shinigami. A grinning harlequin of Death, with leering yellow eyes bulging from his corpse-pallid face divided by a maw of jagged teeth. Feathery black wings emerged from his back. His pale blue neck was attached to his jet black body with surgical staples.

"I'm back in the human world again!" he proclaimed in a horrid gravel voice. He looked down at us with the awful reddish pupils that didn't point the same direction. "That felt like forever! You guys..." He saw the one bound cop, the bound woman screaming in muffled pain, Misa in my lap twitching and puking, and me pointlessly aiming my gun at him.

"...What the hell kind of party are you humans having, huh?"

### 
    
    
    * R U L E S *

**30a**. If you possess or have have traded for the Shinigami eyes, you will see a person's primary life span in the human world.

 **CLARIFICATION** : "Primary life span" refers to the amount of time a human would live if the Death Note ceased to exist the moment they came into being -- alterations in fate caused by the Death Note before a human came into being will be reflected in their life span display. Additionally, any life span directly added or subtracted by interacting with gods of death is shown. Increases or decreases in life span due to unforeseen secondary effects of the Death Note are not displayed.

 **X-8a**. Lifespan is displayed in units of shinigami days. For each day on Earth, 3,556 days pass in the shinigami realm, making a shinigami day roughly equivalent to 12.14 seconds.

 **X-8b**. As there is no sunset or sunrise, the shinigami day is a purely arbitrary unit of time. Time passes at the same speed in both realms.

 **X-8c**. A human's displayed lifespan can be zero or lower, due to errors in display or a life prolonged by secondary effects. Events that would cause such a human's displayed lifespan to be updated, such as trading for the Shinigami Eyes, will not be accurately reflected and will compound the display errors with further inaccuracy.


	9. Never A Cloudy Day

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

The shinigami was leering at me. His face was built so it could do nothing but leer and grin. He hovered closer and closer to us. Laughing. His laugh was the kind of sound that only echoed off of bones.

"What's wrong?" His lips didn't quite match what he was saying. But the malicious glee definitely fit. "Haven't you seen a shinigami before? Oh, that's right. There was something you had to do, wasn't there?"

He was moving to me. No. Misa. If he was going to possess her, then... I had no idea how that would work. But I could see him, at least. Misa was in my lap, quivering. Maybe this thing didn't know... Maybe if it went for me instead... At least if it went for me to possess, it would have a real difficult time writing names or circumstances of death. I let Misa slide from my lap to the forest floor. I extended my quivering hand for it to grasp. Beseeching the god of death.

"Ah. You want to greet me, then?" It extended its spindly hand. It slid into my own for a handshake. It felt slimy. Like an improperly prepared corpse. I grasped it tight.

I rolled back and yanked the shinigami onto my outstretched foot. It made a confused caw sound, and I flipped us until I drove its face into the dirt. I couldn't quickly stand, so I drew my pistol and I fired three times right into the base of the creature's gangly neck before it had any idea what was going on.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

The echoes of gunshots vanished. Eaten by the fog. 

Everything was still. The creature sat up. Unharmed. Unperturbed. Catching it by surprise did nothing. 

"That's really rude, isn't it?" the thing said as it slowly turned its head to look back at us. I scrambled to put myself between it and Misa. Nabiki and Taro looked around in confusion and terror. I had no idea what I was going to do if we'd summoned this thing instead of just being able to see it. If it wanted Misa. God, what if she had a seizure so it could possess her? I couldn't get out of here carrying her. "I was hoping for a much warmer welcome than that." It was standing and leering at me. Eyes not pointing at me. Shit. Shit. Maybe if I grab her by the collar her legs will wake up on their own.

I gasped in pain as I unfolded my knee to stand. Oh God, I could not run on this. I grabbed Misa by her shirt, maybe she --

Her eyes snapped open and she gasped as well. "Aaaaaaaagh!" she squealed, but it seemed like an intentional vocalization. "I'm, I'm, I'm back?" She looked up at me, then darted her vision everywhere else. "I'm, I'm..." She took a deep breath. "I'm okay now. I'm okay. I'm okay now. It's okay. Everything is okay." Her gasps were becoming regular breaths. I helped her to her feet, to see the creature now squatting on a dead tree root poking out of the volcanic soil. It still hadn't touched her. 

She saw it. She dry-heaved again, and I had to grab her, keep her from falling. I was only on one leg because I was holding the cane out to the creature, maybe I could just keep it at bay. 

And then Misa said "R-Ryuk!" Like she recognized it.

"Misa!" it croaked. "Your friend is very rude, isn't she? Tell her we're friends. Just because she can't hurt my body, doesn't mean she can't hurt my feelings." It grinned at me. 

"N-Naomi." Her breaths were fluctuating like she was getting closer to and further from crying. "That's Ryuk. He can't, he can't, he won't hurt us. He can't possess anyone either. He just watches." She did not say he was a friend, I noted. "I'm... I'm gonna fall over again. I need to lay down. H-hold me. Please, hold me."

I did, the best I could. She fell onto me. I couldn't support both of our weight on my knees, so I staggered backwards a few steps, until my back was against a tree. She was sobbing. Crying into my breast. Holding on to me for dear life. 'Ryuk' just stared at us.

"I'm sorry, Naomi," she choked. "I'm so sorry. I... I, I... I remember. I, the Second Kira, she used that notebook, and, and, and when I touched it, I got, I got back the memories she lost." She sniffed back a wad of ugly snot. Her makeup was running down her face and smearing on my jacket, and I slowly slid downward until I was seated and she was laying against me. "I, she, the notebook... It... It was so easy... it felt so good... She, she, I was useful... And... And... and..." she shuddered. "It was me. I'm the, the the the second Kira. It was me. I did it."

We had an audience. A gangly god of death. A depraved, remorseless rapist and murderer by proxy. And her helpless victim. All were staring silently as I held Misa. Stroked her hair. To tell her I was there for her. She sobbed wordlessly into me, and I held her. It was all I could do. 

"I'm... I'm sorry..." What was there to say? To add? I already knew what she had done under that thing's influence. So did she. She killed people to send a message, she killed people for hurting Kira's feelings, and for trying to stop him. She knew all of that and was trying to stop it from happening. But I guess there's different kinds of knowing. "I did it... I'm sorry... It was, it felt so right..."

All three were staring, but only Ryuk could speak. He was uncomfortably close to us. "I'm not sure what is happening," he said, like it was really interesting to him. And then he just stared with his mouth hanging open, displaying his awful teeth. A harlequin of death.

Misa sniffed. "No. No. No, I'm... I'm okay. I'm okay." Slowly, she stood again. "It's okay. I'm okay. I only -- I'm okay. I'm okay. She isn't okay but I'm okay." She wiped her tears and helped me to my feet. "We've... there is important stuff. To do. Uh. This is... this is Ryuk." she gestured to the shinigami. "I'm -- but I'm okay. I'm okay." Closed her eyes. Deep breath. "Ryuk is the shinigami who met Light. Guh-gave him the Death Note. We m-m-m, we m-met, no, it's okay. I'm okay."

"And this is Naomi Misora," Ryuk said. "She's rather important now, isn't she? I didn't quite understand what was going on. I gather you two have been very busy."

"Y, yeah. She's Naomi Misora. She's, she's smart and she's tough and she's cool and I love her so don't mess with her." Deep breath. "If you do she'll figure out some way to kill you." 

"Oh?" Ryuk asked. "How exciting. How many humans have you killed in the past few days, anyway? The old fashioned way? You're clearly very good at it. Maybe you could kill a shinigami! I don't want to cross someone like that. Or maybe I do, just to see how!" Was he mocking me, or his admiration genuine? Which was worse?

"Ryuk is... not like Rem. He's, uh, he's just watching," Misa said. "He's not, like, actively taking part. So he won't, uh, he won't help us. To take down Kira. But he's not going to help Kira to stop us, either. Isn't, isn't that right, Ryuk?"

Ryuk chortled. "That was what I told our 'friend' Kira. Right before I left him. Of course, he probably doesn't remember... Dying makes you forget things, doesn't it?" He tilted his head and stared at me. I think. His eyes were still pointing different directions. But he was definitely mocking me.

I turned away from him. I was still holding on to the notebook... to Misa's old notebook... by the spine, and when I turned, I jostled it. A piece of paper fell out, folded. Misa leapt on it like it was a grenade and fell into a heap as she grabbed it before it hit the ground. "Ack! I have it! I have it!" she said. She sat up. We read it together, in silence.

//MISA, BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, YOU SHOULD HAVE REMEMBERED EVERYTHING. DO YOU REMEMBER MY FRIEND AT TO-OH UNIVERSITY WHO WENT BY THE NAME HIDEKI RYUGA? WRITE HIS REAL NAME IN THE NOTEBOOK AND KILL HIM.

THEN, TAKE A FEW PAGES FOR YOUR PERSONAL USE, AND BURY THIS NOTEBOOK AGAIN SO IT CAN'T BE FOUND. WHEN YOU SEE ME AGAIN, CASUALLY TOUCH ME WITH A PIECE OF THE NOTEBOOK. 

IF YOU DO THIS FOR ME, MISA AMANE, I WILL LOVE YOU FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.//

Misa choked up. Tears were welling in her eyes. "He knew... He knew I would come. And I would get my memory back. So he promised to love me." Her voice was so quiet. Small. Unable to even echo in the great, empty, foggy cavern that she thought her soul was. "I can't... I... I don't think we should do that. If we leave the notebook here these two could get it. Or Light. If we show them the letter... it won't work. His handwriting is totally different than normal. I think he wrote it left-handed, maybe. So, so so he can say someone forged it and didn't do a good job copying it. And there's nothing in the letter I don't already know." I took the letter from her. She was right. It looked more like a forgery than the real thing, given the circumstances. Especially since we wouldn't be willing to turn the notebooks over, not when there was a chance Light would get his hands on one. 

"Ryuzaki," I said, pointing to the two confused captives. 

"Right! Right." she said. Any amount of time I was quiet was enough for her mind to go wandering to dark places and need to be pulled back to the light, I think. "We can still make sure L gets these two. Ryuzaki can help Taro and she doesn't have anything to offer Light, right?" I confirmed. We could also leave any non-fatal evidence we wanted someone to look at. I sure didn't have a lab. "Let's, uh, let's call about them on Nabiki's phone when we get out. And..." Her voice was low already, but she made sure neither could hear her speaking. "We need to go to a hospital. I think you tore your injury again." She caressed my right side... and her hand came up slick with blood. Nervously, she licked her red fingers clean.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

On September 19th, 1997, Hayato Amane has to pick his daughter Misa up from school. To sign the discipline report she was given in a principal's presence, ensuring the child didn't throw it away or eat it. 

She cannot meet his gaze when he comes to pick her up. Nor can she in the car on the way home. Not until he pulls into the drive-thru lane at WcDonald's does she look at him to say "I'm not hungry, Daddy," and then it's back to staring out the window. 

He pulls into a parking space. A long pause. "Do... do you want to talk about it, pumpkin?"

"I'm sorry..." she mumbles. 

"I know you're sorry," he says. He cannot reach over to clasp her shoulder reassuringly as he drives, not with his bad hand. He has to unbuckle his seat and come to a stop to comfort his daughter. "I wanna know what you're feeling. You're really upset. It isn't like you to behave like this."

"It was all Sayaka!" she whines. "We were talking about the culture festival? And I said I was gonna be an actress? And she said, she said I'd never be an actress because I was too fat and nobody would like me? And she and her stupid sister laughed at me and, and and she shouldn't be able to say things like that! It's not fair!" And then all the energy that was rushing through her words leaked out of her, and she slumped again. "So I pulled on her hair and I called her a skank and I got in trouble and now you're mad at me."

There are several things he could say here. But being an old softie, he says "...Is it really important to you to be an actress? You didn't act like this when someone told you girls can't be astronauts."

"It is! It is!" she pouts. "I'd be super good at it! Remember when we made that talk show for class and it turned into like a little skit? And, and I was the Virgin Mary in Mom's pageant, and people liked my performance, right? If I was an actress, lots of people would like it! And people would know who I was and they'd like me!" That last part is the most important.

"...Well... You'll have to be punished for attacking that girl. You're better than that, Misa." She looks down in shame. "Acting is a very hard job, you can't be an actress by hitting people who say you aren't. It takes a lot more commitment than just wanting it." Then he takes a deep breath.

"But... I know someone that does home video distribution. We can see if anyone needs a young actress for some projects. To see what it's like, get your foot in the door."

Misa's face lights up and she promises to take this chance very seriously. She is ashamed of herself for lashing out to defend her identity instead of proving her identity valid, but it wouldn't be the last time she did that.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

We couldn't stop for medical care before, not while we were hounding Nabiki and Isamu. They could have gotten away. Now, though, it was us and Light. We knew what he couldn't do with the police. and we knew the deliberate approach him and Ryuzaki would take. We had time. Shoko Maki had time to walk into the emergency room, show an informative card explaining expressive aphasia, holding it with a blood-slicked hand. 

It was okay, it was laminated. 

Misa couldn't stay with me for treatment, of course. It's not like she's officially licensed as my interpreter anyway. I was in silence as I was taken to the emergency ward. My wound was disinfected with hydrogen peroxide, which hurt intensely but briefly. I was poked and prodded. The gash in my side was sewed up with professional stitches, and not left to stick itself together. My treatment was impersonal and brusque, but professional. My inability to communicate with my doctor was clearly part of it. The moment it became clear that I could not speak fluently, the doctor stopped talking to me, and started talking about me. 

That was not the big problem, though. My wound was not complicated and didn't need a lot of communication. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, of course, it was mostly subcutaneous and no major arteries or organs were hit. He said that to the nurse, like I wasn't there. 

No, my problem was that I had a guest only I could see. And he was more than willing to talk to me. 

"Oooh, look at all the blood. How much is in you, anyway? Mmm, could this kill you?"

"Oh! Your flesh is foaming up. Did they pour acid on you?"

"She's sewing you together! Interesting. Is that what these things on my neckline are supposed to be?"

"Are you sure the Death Note is safe? Have you checked it lately?"

"Ha ha ha. How does it feel when you can't talk to them? You look frustrated. Are you crying?"

He was trying to needle me. Get a rise out of me. Some kind of reaction. Validate his presence and power, or gauge what sort of relationship we had. In between barbs, he was scratching his neck, tapping his fingers. When I laid on my side to be stitched up, his harlequin face was right in front of mine. I didn't react, well, any more than could be explained as reacting to them treating my only partially treated stab wound. Or to their treatment of me. I guess I was really good about having thoughts and not letting them slip out of my mouth. I've seethed about a lot of things I couldn't open my mouth about, haven't I?

My wound was dressed. Without really consulting me, I was sent to rest. Still no sign of Misa. She was probably sleeping, given how tired she was, and I couldn't blame her. I could use a nap myself. But I wasn't going to get one. I wasn't even going to get to watch her sleep. Not even in a cramped car trunk, illuminated by a pen light that I shaded with my finger to keep out of her eyes, smiling at how silly things were in her dream. I was gonna deal with this jerk.

"There!" Ryuk said when the nurse left my recuperating room. "She left. If you could talk, you could talk now." He stood before the doorway, gangly arms and legs hanging over the tile floor. Silhouetted by the light from the hallway. Bopping from one heel to the other.

I wasn't going to play his game. Not going to get upset at his barbs. I was going to dictate how this relationship was going to go. Slowly and calmly, I went through my index cards. This one had myself, placing a box with a question mark into a machine made of gears. //HOW: I am asking a question about something's method or origin!// "Kill."

"Oh, you should know that by now!" he chortled. "I kill humans with the Death Note. Rem told you that too, I'm sure."

No expression. The problem is not me. The problem is not my brain damage and I will not be frustrated with my brain damage. He knows what I am asking and I am communicating that I will not tolerate his shit. I tap the index card against my palm three times. //HOW: I am asking a question about something's method or origin!// "Kill."

"YOU? Oh, there are no rules there, are there?" Like telling a bawdy joke. "You can kill humans in any old way you want. It must be so exciting to have that freedom."

Tap. Tap. Tap. //HOW: I am asking a question about something's method or origin!// "Kill."

"If I knew how it worked, hmmm, I couldn't tell you," he confided. "It doesn't make sense, does it? How a piece of paper can warp Fate. Nobody has to read it. It doesn't even need to be on file."

Tap. Tap. Tap. //HOW: I am asking a question about something's method or origin!// "Kill."

"Ahhhhhh." His bony finger went to his chin. "You want to know how you died, don't you?" I did not react. He knew the answer. "I can't tell you that either. We have an agreement, right? I don't help Kira, and I don't help you. What if you get some information that you can use against Kira, huh?"

My cold, intimidating silence was inevitably ruined. "Huh. Uh... Fail."

"He did fail, didn't he?" Ryuk said, sidling up to me. "You're discovering all sorts of new quirks and side effects of the Death Note that were never intended. I find it all fascinating." He was pointing now, above my head, where Misa said my hex code was hovering. "I wouldn't have imagined you could do half of these things that all of you figured out." My survival wasn't something I figured out. It was luck. He waved around what looked like a booklet made of thin metal sheets. "We'll have to add a lot to the rulebook! I'm almost sad to think it's going to end so soon... Of course, it's also so exciting. Aren't you excited to end it all, Naomi?"

Ryuk is clearly not an alien. Whatever type of thing he is is based on a human being. He has human anatomy and human mannerisms, or he's at least based on them. Whatever process of twisting they went through, he once had human passions. 

For one, he's a type of human that any law enforcer knows really well. Ryuk's an addict. He's jonesing. I can tell he's hopping from one foot from the next, popping his neck, shivering, looking for a fix in places that clearly won't have one. Misa mentioned giving him apples on the way over. Given the whole //L, DID YOU KNOW GODS OF DEATH LIKE APPLES?// deal, and Light trying to get Ryuzaki to eat more apples -- I'm guessing he wanted more laying around -- the obvious inference is that this otherworldly creature is addicted to normal human world apples. I think that's part of it. But he's not asking me about apples. He's not stealing things to sell for apples. Nor offering to give up Light's secrets in exchange for some. Only Misa and I can see him, but he is trying very hard to pretend that there is nothing he wants. So there's something he wants more than apples.

Ryuk wants us to think he's above us. The kind of person who will take great pains to conceal their petty crimes, but once caught, claim "I'm just doing this for a laugh, I don't really care." Someone whose emotional investment is in appearing emotionally detached.

Ryuk was hanging around the secret mastermind Kira, while he invisibly orchestrated everything. Ryuk got himself addicted to the rush of power that comes with knowing something other people really need to know, but don't. It sounds like they parted when Light died, a time when Light had no idea what was going on. He wants to know so badly what we're up to, but he can't bear the thought of revealing he cares enough to ask. All he wants to ask is trivial, insulting questions to annoy me. Because he doesn't really care, you see, oh God forbid I ever think he cares. Ha ha, you're disabled and I'm not, I do things so effortlessly that you can't, this is all just a game to me.

So he knew things I did not. Of course he did. He was quite smug about them. He was quite smug about my inability to communicate, too. Just walked in circles around an obvious question, to annoy me. As long as he thought he was in charge, he wouldn't be blabbing anything. Feeding him trivial details and otherwise keeping him occupied would keep him quiet, because if he affected the outcome it would mean he wasn't a death-jester doing it for a giggle. There was one very important thing I needed to know, though.

"Kira. Uh. Kira. Kira, kira, and, and... and, and, and Misa. Uh. Uh. Love."

He thought for a moment. He figured out what I am obviously asking. I wasn't capable of subtly wording a sentence to give a false impression of what my true intent is, but I could throw three words at the wall. So he knew what the most important question here was, and resolved to not answer.

"Hmm. Oh, Misa was quite a fan of Kira, wasn't she? You're quite a unique person to trust her after that." He grinned. Of course he did. It was all he did.

"Nngh! Misa, Misa, and Kira!" I was trying to ask him the wrong question, and couldn't even get that out. Even when I am intentionally using my disability, it frustrates me to no end. Tears were already trickling down my face. I wished I could talk. I always will.

"Hmm, Misa and Kira, huh?" Tapped his finger to his chin theatrically. "Yes, that should be interesting, shouldn't it? When they meet back up. Won't it be fun to be a fly on the wall for that little meeting? Maybe you should stay away -- you don't want to ruin the authenticity of Kira's reaction, do you?"

I grunted again, but that time the frustration was fake. Thanks a lot, Ryuk. Since I need to stay out of the way, and 'we' don't, and you didn't make a joke about staying hidden, you know that Light can't see you. You danced very effectively around the question of 'does Misa still love Kira,' a question I didn't need the answer to. Well done.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

It's August 22nd, 2005, and the Los Angeles BB Murders have just been solved. The moment Naomi Misora saves the life of the final victim, no more will be taken. Here in room 404, she slaps the matchbox out of the hand of a pale, scrawny, shoeless guy with dark circles under his eyes, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans that have been soaked in gasoline. And as she has just saved his life, she of course shouts at him "You! What the FUCK is wrong with you?" 

The man who called himself Rue Ryuzaki stares up at her with giant, haunting eyes. "You stopped me. I wasn't done."

"This whole time. This whole fucking time," she admonishes herself. "It was you. Pretending to investigate. Leading me along. Playing word games. Strange clues pointing to the next murder site. Capital letters. Roman numeral codes. Like you're Frank FUCKING Gorshin, right!?" she bellows. Adam West's Riddler. She may have saved his life but her gun is levelled at his head. "Keeping me dancing on a string. Keeping me asking what letters look like, asking what the killer was trying to communicate, so I wouldn't ask the obvious question of what the killer got out of any of this."

"Of course," he says, like he can't believe this is a question. "You almost ran out of time. I gave up hope that you would figure it out."

"This was a TEST?" she snaps. "What were you even testing? My fucking patience?"

"Among other things." He perches on the balls of his feet, hands on his knees, like he isn't covered in gasoline. "I had to ensure you would be worthy of being L's successor. I had to ensure that L himself was worthy of the title. How could he be the World's Greatest Detective, if he had not faced the World's Greatest Criminal? Solved the unsolvable crime?"

"So it was all a game," she confirms. "You were making the, the ultimate 4koma of perfect locked room murders." Didn't quite know the right word in Japanese, much less English. "All of them would point to each other and form an unsolvable puzzle. So L would be forever haunted by the one he couldn't solve. That was your goal?"

"Precisely." He chews his nail. Then he spits out the gasoline. "Bleagh! Mmmph. Precisely. I'm glad to see you figured it out."

"Three human beings are dead," she intones, "so you could get into a dick-measuring contest with a faceless organization who doesn't know or care about you. A test? A fucking TEST?" Her voice jumped again. "Unsolvable murders happen all the time! The world doesn't need a piece of shit like you adding to that number so you can, you can test the bona fides of some prick who doesn't matter! What the fuck does this have to do with being an actual investigator?" She pants and runs her fingers through her hair. "I thought I was going to be killed. I thought it was worth the risk to stop the serial killer. But I could have stayed in bed the whole time and let you burn yourself to death, and nothing would have changed. Instead, I got to watch you masturbate." The humiliation is bright red on her face. "That's the only thing you've accomplished. You murdered people because it's apparently the only way you can jerk off. Master fucking criminal, here."

"Hmph." 'Ryuzaki' is unimpressed. "I think you're letting your emotions get the better of you, miss Misora. You should get all the information from the suspect you can."

She grabs him by the neck and pulls him to his feet. "Get up. Get up!" she shouts, pulling out her cuffs. "Don't act like you're lecturing me. If you wanted a girl to listen to your sob story or your grand theory of the world's injustice, you should have paid a hooker. I don't give a shit." Her face is a mask of anger. A mask worn over self-hatred and uselessness. The face of a child realizing anyone who complimented her must have been planning to trick her. Of Carrie at the prom, being soaked in the blood of three innocent people. "Hands behind your back! Ryuzaki Rue, you're under arrest for the murders of Bartholomew Baxter, Quela Quijano, and Bonita Bolivar. You have the right to remain silent. If you choose to waive this right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you." The handcuffs slam closed around his scrawny wrists, and she jerks him toward the door.

"My name isn't Ryuzaki!" he protests. "It's Beyond! My name is Beyond Birthday!"

She grabs him by the cheeks and stares into his eyes. Through gritted teeth, she tells him "Do you think you're going to go down in history? Do you think that name is going to be said with hushed tones and awe?" The look in his eyes tells her all she needs to know. "In three months time, the only people who will even remember your stupid fucking chuuni name are me, your public defender, and three or four trivia addicts at the Los Angeles Times. And none of us are going to care. L isn't even going to think about you. So congratulations, 'Beyond Birthday'. You wasted four lives for nothing." She curses herself for relying on someone else's judgment, trusting too easily and thoughtlessly, but it wouldn't be the last time she did that.

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

"Do we have a lab?" I asked Ryuzaki. "Because I want to say 'Get this to the lab!'."

In one sealed Baggie was my original Death Note, without any of its pages -- all cut off at the perforation by a blade. My two fake rules were still readable even though the bottom outside corners had been burned, but the instruction about writing the circumstances of death was illegible. In the other was a water bottle filled with dust, with a piece of paper helpfully labelled //RESIDUE LEFT BY A DEAD KIRA// in Misa's handwriting.

"We have a crime lab, but I doubt they have the equipment necessary to analyze the residue of a dead god," said Ryuzaki. "I recommend that we courier these to L's materials laboratory in New Mexico for full analysis."

I had no use for the notebook, now that Ryuzaki saw the rules written inside. I had no idea if there was any use for shinigami dust. Maybe you'd get high if you snorted it, I don't know. "I know you say that I'm in charge now, Ryuzaki, but it's weird how you still have the keys to everything. Send them off, I assume you have a secure means of doing so." He nodded and tapped some directions into his phone. "Are our new guests comfortable?" I asked.

"Taro Ogawa is in a padded cell," Ryuzaki mumbled. "We'll lower in tools at the appropriate time. Nabiki Egawa was sedated to place her in restraints, but due to her condition, sedation will not be a viable long-term solution."

"Because of the baby," I clarified. Nabiki could end my life by saying three simple words, naming the game they contacted Kira through. I had to ensure she wouldn't do that. It would be simple enough: she was a spiteful, grieving woman. If I told her she needed to give me information before I could help her, she would clam up because of course I'm trying to rob her. Ryuzaki's method of interrogation took a long time, empirically speaking. Judging by how long it took Misa -- who had amnesia and was far less emotionally stable -- he was going to be dead long before Nabiki felt like talking. "If we believe Misa, we don't need to straitjacket her. If she's been strip-searched, we can be confident she doesn't have anything from this... 'Death Note'." Such a relief to be able to call it that and not the names people were making up. "Slightly more freedom may make her slightly more cooperative."

"And?" Ryuzaki asked, expectant. "Do we believe Misa?"

"Yeah... I think I do. About this, anyway." I believed her completely, and now I know she's back on my side. "She could have had the two of these people killed, but she called up her talent agency because she knew we had them wiretapped and told us where to find them. Left evidence as well. It could be a deception, but, she doesn't have the patience for that, and I don't buy it coming from Naomi either."

"Hm." He looked away. Chewed his nail. "I expected Misa to hang around with you, Light, and help us because you wanted her to. But she wanted to become a full member of the Kira Investigation because she agreed with our mission."

"...Not because she'd come to realize Kira was evil and must be brought to justice," I continued for him, "But because Kira needed guidance. Kira needed help not to make mistakes like he'd done with Naomi and Raye. And the Second Kira said that she wanted to work with the police, didn't she? She did change her view... but only her idea of what Kira's station should be. Leader to subordinate." This was true. She wanted to work for me. Under me. To be useful to me, because I was her obsession.

"Hm. You think that she was the second Kira?" Ryuzaki gestured to the notebook. "She was in captivity for far more than 13 days."

"Shit. You're right. That kind of throws a wrench into things." I giggled internally. That was what it was for. "And Naomi was conscious when the Second Kira sent out those messages, but her disability would make it impossible to create the tapes without an accomplice, which she had a very meager supply of." L looked suspicious. Time to make a big play. "Hell, for all I know, the rule is fake. Maybe you were right the whole time, and I was Kira, and I lost my memory when the Kira possessing me figured there was too much heat, and I put in fake rules to throw off suspicion from Misa and they just didn't work. It would explain why Misa is so insistent I am Kira, moreso than anger at an ex-boyfriend. Given what a shitshow this has become, I don't think I'm in danger of relapsing. If that's even a possibility -- maybe you become immune after one possession. Maybe she's come to see the light of Kira again all on her own." And now, my previous plan has been implemented with zero risk. Every past suspicion is explained away. 

Ryuzaki seemed to mull that over. "You did stop in place when you saw Naomi in our room. The Kira could have fled your body then. But you didn't say anything to communicate it like Misa did..." He looked at the mystical evidence. Then left. Then right. Anywhere but the eyes of the person he was talking to. "It's not a very parsimonious explanation anyway. Why should an object that allows you to kill, also take your memory?"

"We're dealing with magic, Ryuzaki," I said. "If it was the truth, we'd also still have to explain how being possessed in the past made Misa immune to the Death Note," which she wasn't and nobody but me and her knew it, "but it didn't do the same for me. We've got a lot of questions that don't fit together very well, but the most important thing right now is controlling the danger. I think without Kira-Y running around, Misa can be negotiated into surrendering. I don't suppose you can still hijack all the TV broadcasts in the region to send her a message, can you?"

Ryuzaki shrugged. He seemed more distant than usual. "It would be much more difficult and risky without the government's compliance. But I also have access to more money than a human could possibly spend. If you don't mind them not airing at precisely the same time, I can buy ads on every station in the region to achieve the same effect." Then he went back to looking off into space.

"Ryuzaki... You can't be considering it, can you?" I asked, full of faux-concern. "You're not thinking that you want Kira to work under you to not make mistakes, are you?"

"Hmph." He scoffed. "I'm asking myself, if this Death Note comes from a god of death... why do they exist? Who printed the paper? Who gives them pens?" He whirled to face me, his pupils the size of saucers. "Humans can become immune to it by accident or design, so these gods can't be the mechanism by which death exists. They simply kill people. Why? If they exist because we do... how many other such beings? Is there a Memory Note or Love Note? A Fortune Note? Harvest Note? Are they all notebooks? Are they all Japanese? Are we being watched by the spectres of dead Russian gods?"

"Where does the money come from, right?" Those were extremely good questions. Between this and his Illuminati masters, I would have my hands full.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

Models, actresses, and singers, all are backstage in Shibuya. Between acts, sipping champagne, they are ready for the ball to drop and turn 2006 into a brand new rockin' 2007. 

"I don't know what country these people live in," says the young bluenette Tsubasa Aoi of Smile Kiss. "You go around and people are talking about 'yeah, man, those criminals, they always get off because there's not enough evidence, the courts are afraid to convict them, Kira's looking out for us!' And it's total bullshit, you know?"

"Huh what?" asks Misa Amane, who is going to do the countdown this year. Her face is all screwed up from champagne bubbles going up her nose, but she sure feels warm and funny. "What's going on? Who's bullshit?"

Tsubasa doesn't look at who is asking the question. "Did you know the Americans had to write into the Constitution that we weren't allowed to convict anyone when the only evidence against them was their confession, because the cops just couldn't stop grabbing random people and beating confessions out of them?" What Tsubasa says is true. The policy is a lot more equitable and justice-minded than some of the other things Americans had inserted into Japan's constitution, like the hidden provisions about staying out of the way of the Minutemen. "They just keep doing it anyway. You can't get your case thrown out when there is literally no evidence against you, right, so, like, where the heck is this crime wave of supercriminals who keep skating off? People in this country are just so ignorant." Tsubasa downs her entire champagne glass as punctuation, to show how hard-bitten and worldly she is. She immediately sneezes, gags, and proclaims "Oh my GOD that is awful!"

"Criminals get off. They get off all the time," Misa mumbles, and the warm bubbly feeling is turning into something else. "If Kira didn't stop them nobody would."

"Where, huh?" Tsubasa says with a contemptuous snort. "People imagine things to be afraid of, you know? When was the last time you even heard of someone being..." Tsubasa's eyes go wide as her brain catches up to her mouth and tackles it to the ground. "Oh. Oh my God, Misa, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize -- I didn't know you were, I mean, I knew--"

"No." The venomous sarcasm in Misa's voice burns a hissing hole in the ground. "Keep going. Keep talking, Tsubasa. Tell me how nobody gets off and nobody gets away, huh?"

"That-- you know that was different," Tsubasa complains. "That guy, he had the public prosecutor paid off or something. His dad was someone influential, right?" She looks around for support from the crowd, who all avoid eye contact. "It, it's not--"

"Yeah, and that's how he got off!" Misa snaps. "There was a reason he got off, so he got off! And if Kira hadn't been there to keep us safe he'd get off again after he killed your family!" Her face is turning red, and not in the fun tipsy way any more. Humiliation is flushing through all of her skin. The others are backing away. "The cops are too scared to go after anyone who fights back! Kira needs to know we're thankful so he'll keep protecting us! Or does it only count when your parents are getting murdered, huh?" 

"NO!" Tsubasa barks in a panic. "It, you know, it's a tragedy! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up. I was wrong to talk so cavalierly about a subject so painful to you. Please, accept my apology." Misa sees Tsubasa bow, and turns away in a huff, but doesn't seem to be pursuing it further.

And then, Tsubasa simply cannot help herself. Perhaps it is the liquor or that she was never taught proper manners. She always has to have the last word. She adds. "...All I meant was, you know, if you look at the number of people he kills, I just think he'd have to get a couple bad people just by chance, even if he wasn't a good guy..."

Misa leaps on her, clawing, yanking her hair, 45 kilograms of fury shrieking "BITCH I WILL RIP YOUR WEAVE OUT!" It's not the first time she substitutes her own self-worth for her esteem of a third party, nor is it the last. And it certainly isn't a comfort to be told that since one is only one in a million, one's pain doesn't matter.

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

I've had lots of nightmares, lately. Sometimes, in the past, I've had dreams that were so illogical I stopped them midway: "Wait a second, why would the FBI send me back to my high school for continuing education? None of you are even speaking Japanese!" I never knew what to do in the few moments of lucid dreaming I get before my subconscious gets swept back up in the narrative. Take my top off? Insult people? Blow up a bank? The nightmares, they all feel too real to figure this out. It hasn't come up lately. 

Anyway, Raye was on his hands and knees trapped in cement while a wraithlike Misa curled her deathly pointy fingers around my mouth and throat. One hand was needles, and they stitched my mouth shut so I wouldn't scream for help. The other hand was scalpels, and they danced about my neck, drawing the slightest slivers of blood to heighten my terror. She cackled like a witch, brought her bladed talons up to drive them through my brain. I tried to scream but I was muted. And she held them there... and held them there... and held them there...

I was so god damn tired I couldn't even wake up from my nightmare at the moment of climax. My brain had no idea where to go from there. Dream-Misa apologized for flubbing the take in a voice that sounded like that actor Hideki Ryuga and took out my stitches. I think I just enjoyed the ability to talk for a bit, before it became a new dream about following Misa while she filmed a remake of 'Matango'. I can still talk in my dreams, but I don't remember that's special. At least I think it's talking. Maybe what I say is nonsense and I can't notice it. Maybe a psychic would interpret my internal monologue as total gibberish, but I can't tell the difference.

Yeah. I was in a weird place. Anything to get my mind off of Ryuk, off of Light Yagami and the fact there was nothing else to do but go after him. The super-genius mastermind killer with all the resources of L at his disposal. 

Misa needed sleep too. It was 10 AM the next morning, the 20th, when I woke up. I had to get myself discharged, against medical advice, with a doctor trying not to talk to me but with nobody else to talk to. And I still had to go find her, dozing with my crappy LN over her face. She had a thick coat, long black gloves, a scarf, a cap, anything to disguise her identity. We paid up -- another great thing about working in Japan over America, cheap medical bills that don't require lots of calls to be made. Our gear was where we stashed it, though we couldn't keep the bright red import car. Train tickets to Kanto were inexpensive. The whole time a cloud hung over us, dark as the shinigami. One question.

"What are we going to do?"

The pLaza was an impenetrable fortress. Designed to withstand a siege. Light had access to all the resources of L there, and the whole place was built after Misa's capture, so it wasn't like she had regained any forbidden knowledge. We couldn't possibly attack him.

Every step we took through Tokyo, looking for supplies, looking for shelter, the question hung over us. With every step our confidence in Hugh Jackman's fifth-place lookalike contest placement lowered. No other pressing issue to grab attention. Everyone here could recognize her, attack her. We had to hide out for a while, amd stay close to the action. Another in a string of motels, low-grade and nicer than most everything in America. 

Sakura TV's midafternoon news program was talking about sightings of Misa Amane. We'd been seen by two people, at two places... but the other eight had nothing to do with us. The newscaster didn't say what people should do with Misa Amane if they found her. She tossed it over to the sports desk like there was nothing unusual about that. We changed the channel.

Misa sat in my lap. She wasn't saying a lot. Her mind was very far away. I can't blame her, she had a lot to absorb, and doom on the horizon. She was holding onto my scars. Tried to start saying something a few times, but stopped herself. Nothing more impactful than "I miss not being scared," with no response afterward. Ryuk was at least quiet, since we bought him a stack of manga, but it wouldn't mollify him forever.

At least it wouldn't have to. Because our regularly scheduled commercials were interrupted by a gothic-font //L// and a scrambled voice.

"This is a message for Kira," it said. "The so-called 'Second' Kira. You have seen what others have done in Kira's name, but you are still out there somewhere. Followers of Kira have created nothing but death and violence. Tragedy follows in your wake. In the past you claimed that the police should work with Kira. It is time now to see if you have convictions, or they are merely a cloak for your selfish desires. I am willing to negotiate your peaceful surrender. You will not be harmed. Whatever capacity you have cannot be trusted to your judgment, and you know of the horrible mistakes you can and will make. But there can be a chance your ability can be turned to the ends of justice with supervision. You know how to arrange our meeting. If you surrender, this will prove your chance of redemption. If you hide, you will only prove the cowardice and avarice of Kira's acolytes. I await your message."

It went to an ad for detergent, and I turned off the TV. Misa was shaking. "He wants me to surrender. He, he wants me to be Kira for him..."

He knew she had her memories back too. This was a ploy. We could use that to our advantage. I gently shook her to bring back her attention. "Uh. And, ah.... Remember?"

"Remember!" she said with a start. "Yeah. Uh. Something in my memories. Something I lost before, but he would know, and helps us. Something he wants me to know. Something he wants me to use for him." She paused. Stayed silent for a while. "It's hard... it's not like they're fresh. It was months ago. And, it, uh, I..." She winced. "I said I loved him. I loved him so much. Uh, he told me I couldn't use the Death Note to make him fall in love, because you can't put two names in... that was not all the way true, I guess. Uh. I saw him at To-Oh but that was right at the end... Oh. I know." She looked at me. "I went to his house and he didn't want me to. He said we had to meet somewhere private. He said we would go... to Hotel Shibuya Palace. Room 319. And nobody would know."

"Sure?"

"No, I'm not," she said. "But Ryuk was there. Ryuk, was it room 319?"

Ryuk chuckled. "Hmm. I'm not sure I can help you with that. I'm neutral, remember?"

I grunted negative. One, he's telling her information Light wanted her to have anyway. Two, "Nngh! Help!"

"You can ask for help all you want, but it doesn't change the fact I have to be neutral."

God damn it! He's messing with me again. Or he isn't. Calm down. What is the thing he did? He made something false. To help Light. "Rule."

"Yeah, she's right!" Misa picked up, "You wrote fake rules into the Death Note for him. It was all the same handwriting. That isn't neutral. And... You had to have communicated with Isamu in some way. You should help us at least a few times. Then it's even."

"Hmph!" He laughed. "Assertive! But I suppose that's fair. He wouldn't be mad if I told you again... room 619. But if you want more, I need to see some apples." Of course. Still has to be above it all.

"We can... if I pick the park nearby there, right, as where I want to give myself up, then he does the thing where he makes a cockpit in a room to watch me surrender. Right?" she asked. I nodded. "He wants me to surrender to him. And if I go there, he will go to that room, because he knows I will go there. And I can go and meet him again."

Misa might have been okay with dying to slay Light. I wasn't. We had to clear her name. To do that we had to get planning. 

"Naomi, I... I know we need to make a plan. And I know that's a lot of work and we have to write things down and make diagrams and I have to write it all down and you need to sign off to make sure I get it right so that's gonna be like, it's like four hours even if you know every step already. Not like, not nearly as fast as Light can do it" Misa's voice dropped to a whisper. "But I... I might die. Or you might die. And I want, I want to make what I did right. But I need to tell you now, right? Once we're done, I... I need to be alone with the Death Note." She looked down in shame, unable to meet my gaze. Ryuk was right next to her, grinning. "I wanna get one of the mini tape recorders and say what I did. In, in, April, when I was the Second Kira. I need, I need the book there to help me remember all the details. I just, I don't want you to hear me. Not yet. When it's over. And if I die, you can just never listen and I die a hero. I promise, I promise I won't use it. Won't write down anyone's name. Just go out and get apples and whatever supplies we need, and, and I'll make the tape."

I clasped her hands in mine. I needed her. I loved her. And I trusted her. The person she was then did not exist. "Yes," I said, and I slowly nodded. This was important. I respected her and her needs and her desire to make it right. It would be a hard journey we would go on together.

Misa looked relieved. Ryuk chuckled. But Ryuk chuckled at everything.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

It's April of 2004 and Naomi Misora drums on the steering wheel with a pair of ballpoint pens almost in time with the rising music coming out of the van's stereo, though when she smacks the imaginary cymbals it has nothing to do with any actual sound. She lip-syncs along with the singer:

"I see the way the salesmen stare into the sun! I stood and watched them as they fell off one by one! And everyone's so blind! They're not to help mankind!"

In the passenger seat, Raye Penber sips a gas station coffee and watches. He says nothing, but the awkwardness is building. And eventually, she pauses the CD player. 

"What?" she says with a nervous chuckle. "You said I could play my music, didn't you? Is there a problem?"

"What? Problem? No, I like it," he says with his hand up in a conciliatory fashion. "Just was kind of funny. I feel like a punk in the FBI is sort of a mixed message."

"Quit it, you!" she says and slaps him on the arm, but it is a friendly tease. "And there's nothing mixed about it. I'm a punk in Japan. That makes me an upstanding law-abiding conservative, uh, uh, Leave It To Beaver in America."

"Oh, of course, it's a sliding scale," Raye joshes back. "In Saudi Arabia you'd grow a lip ring and start throwing Molotov cocktails, but if we went to Italy, you'd turn into a nun. Happens all the time. It's actually why they have so many nuns. I'm half-Japanese, of course, so my pants are punk. It's hard to tell."

She giggles. "That isn't how it works! It's the International Date Line," she says and pokes out her tongue. "You go over that, you travel in time. If I'd gone the other way, I'd turn into a beatnik!"

"That was why the stewardess on my flight went around collecting bongos!" Raye says with realization. "And your skateboard turned into a wholesome wooden scooter!"

"Hey!" Naomi says with false offense. "Don't talk about my skateboard. I will get that out of storage and I will grind this van right now. I'll fall off and look like a jackass, but I'll show you!"

Raye is fun. Nice back and forth. Hanging out with him might not be all bad. She feels more comfortable with him than with herself. She doesn't need to trust him more than herself, though. Her job hasn't broken her yet.

"Well, I can't let you shred my face off on an empty stomach," he says. "By that I mean I'm gonna go get us dinner, what do you want? No, no, you don't have to get up, I'll get it. It's fine. My treat."

"Okay, your funeral," she says. "You know Mackey's up the street? I want the garlic cheeseburger platter, no onions, large orange Fanta. And -- and this is important! -- tell Mackey to put on 'five times as much garlic as you think it needs'."

### 
    
    
    * L I G H T *

"It's crazy. I can't let you do this, Light," Ryuzaki implored me. 

"You remember when Misa faked us out. How powerless we were. Trapped with no idea what's going on," I said to him. "There's a chance she tries something, and I want to be close by to see and react. She's got no way of knowing where the command post is. There's nothing I can do here that I can't do in a hotel room." And something big I can do in hotel room 619 that I can't do here. Meet with her. Show her Ryuzaki's face. 

"There's still a chance. It's safer here," he mumbled. "We can't secure a hotel without making it conspicuous."

"Ryuzaki, I'd be in more danger here than there. We need all hands on deck out there. Yoyogi Park is huge, we might need to bring out Matsuda just to have enough manpower to cover it," I told him. "If I stay here, it's just you and me and the custodial staff, and maybe Misa never planned to surrender. Maybe I get shot and Misa makes you declare her the L-Kira."

"Hmph." Ryuzaki kicked some dust. "Then I'm coming with you."

"You should hide, Ryuzaki. If you don't trust your judgment to head the case, then you should hide in a bunker somewhere," I said. I knew it wouldn't work. I had a plan in place in case it did, I could get a picture of him, but I wouldn't need it. "You are L, after all. You're supposed to be a shadow."

"Light, I can't..." He pushed his hand through his hair. Expressing feelings? This super genius sure was rotten at that! "I can't lose you, Light. Do you... Do you remember me saying you were my first friend?"

"Ryuzaki. Of course I do." It was very off-putting.

"I wasn't making it up, Light," he said. He couldn't meet my eyes. "I'm... I've not been right for this whole case. I can't shake this feeling of doom. It only gets worse over time." He sat down on the floor. Well, perched on the balls of his feet. I slid down the wall to sit next to him, like a friend would. "I shouldn't have had Naomi Misora compromised. She shouldn't have been brain damaged in the first place, because I should have told Watari to pick her up from the airport and escort her. I had an eye on her! I knew I wanted to see her and I, I, I don't know, I just forgot. I ran out of ideas on how to prosecute the case a while ago. I said I was bored? Like, it made it okay if I picked up the most significant criminal investigation in human history because 'oh, well, I was just bored, I had nothing better to do than my job'?Every time I put a security detail on you, a week later I noticed a dozen places I left open. I fixated on you because... I wanted to spend time with you, I guess. The most prolific serial killer ever on the loose and I just want a friend."

"Wow," I said. "I don't know how to respond to that." And I really didn't. His emotions were kind of gross, though I hid my revulsion. "This is the hardest case that has ever existed. It would mess anyone up."

"I don't think you get it, Light," he said with an uneasy, croaky laugh. "You know I'm too young to be the first L. L's an institution. My employers made it. It's been around a LOT longer than people think. Why... Why bother with a secret identity? Why a name that's just a letter? Why would you go to so much trouble to conceal the name and face of someone who is only ever going to interact with law enforcers and administrators?"

"...You think the Illuminati, or whoever, made L to defeat this Death Note before it ever appeared."

"I think I was raised since age 5 to be the only human being on Earth who could solve this case." His voice was almost just a creak. His eyes were wet, but not yet weeping. "And I completely, completely fucking choked. You know what it is when you choke? When you see the ball coming, you're already swinging in a perfect arc, but you miss because you're so afraid of failing you can't succeed." He wiped an eye. "God. I'm supposed to be a shadow in a trenchcoat. Nobody's supposed to see me like this. Is this what normal people feel like when they're vulnerable? It's awful."

"...Yeah, it's pretty terrible," I admit. "But none of that matters. We're going to get Misa and Naomi. If there is another Kira we're going to find out who from them or Nabiki. You and me. We're almost done, it's not time to bug out now." I extended my hand to him. "Come on."

"You're a lot more like me than you think, Light," he said. "I think that's why we're friends. You're someone... you're someone who everyone says was a genius. The best in the world. Everything was your oyster. And you looked around and you said 'What? How? What do I do?' You didn't feel any different when you got into To-Oh, did you? You were wondering when you were going to start feeling smart. Wondering when you would be a part of the world moving it, instead of watching it pass. When all that genius would grant you the power to really act on things. When you'd stop being a pair of eyes and start being a human."

Maybe that's who I'd be without the Death Note. But that person was weak. I had to nod along anyway.

"But you're... better at this. Than me. I see you, and I see... a person. I see how I could be a person. I just can't lose that. I focused on you so much, so you could be this mastermind, so I could have been a mastermind. I can't lose you, Light. If all I did was to pass lead to someone who could solve the case, someone who deserves to be L, I, I can't let that person die. I can't fail again. I can't lose you."

I put out my hand again. "You won't. You are going to be right there with me and make sure I don't miss anything, make sure I stay safe." He smiled. He took my hand. "And why should we bother asking who deserves to be L? You're way better at the organization anyway. L is a shadow in a trenchcoat. Who is going to know if it's two people? Four? Ten? Who will care?"

He chuckles a little as he lets me pull him to his feet. He was mollified at least a little. In his honor, after his death, I'll pretend to be two people sometimes. One of them a spineless coward like him.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

It's January 2nd, 2007. Naomi Misora has no idea she's been followed. All her personal effects have been destroyed and her bike is gone. There is no doubt as she approaches the cliff. No hesitation. She mutters to herself as she binds the cord around her wrists and neck. The last time she will ever speak fluent language. "What the fuck were you thinking. You absolute fucking dipshit. You didn't deserve him and you can't live without him. You're fucking worthless. All you ever did was watch a punk kid jack off about letters and you tricked people into thinking that made you important. You can't even bail out and be a fucking housewife any more. You can't do anything. Everyone would be happier if they never thought about you again. Jump. JUMP, you worthless twat!" And she does.

It's March 20th, 2007. Misa Amane grabs on to the Death Note like a life preserver, the only buoyancy in an infinite blackness. Kira is truth and light. Kira makes the world make sense. Now she has a piece of Kira. Now she can be like him and be a part of the order and sanity he brings. Kira, the savior, killing criminals to keep the world safe. But Kira can't be all knowing, if L is still around. Kira needs help. Kira never picked up a very important name. Two minutes after Rem explains to her how to kill a human using the Death Note, she does so. //PUBLIC PROSECUTOR TAKAMOTO NAREO// falls to the ground clutching his chest forty seconds after Misa writes his name. The previous 80 seconds were her digging in kitchen drawers for a pen. Kira has made a tiny mistake of omission, but Misa is there to make sure it was nothing bad. Her life has a purpose again. Correcting mistakes.

And Light? What is he before the Death Note? What he is ten years ago is the same thing he is November 27th of last year, one day before he found it. He is waiting. He is disconnected. He is adrift in his mind.

He is incomplete.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

Misa Amane has called Sunshine Talent Agency again to get L's wiretap. The man who she borrowed the phone from was very confused to overhear her call. She has negotiated a surrender for tonight. September 21st, 2007, at 9 PM. She will turn herself over in Yoyogi Park in Shibuya, along with Naomi Misora. There is a complicated sequence of events and signals that are to be carried out when she sits on a bench to indicate she is ready to be taken, and that she believes herself safe. They need not be detailed because none of them will happen. 

Naomi Misora has a plan. Once her and Misa are in room 619, where Light has set up his command center anticipating a rendezvous, there's really only one step of it that can possibly fail. But it requires her to trust Misa without hesitation. She does. 

Light Yagami's plan is very simple. Once Misa and Naomi are in room 619, where he has set up his command center, there really aren't any steps of it that can fail.

There is only one way to see who is right.

Watari is perched on a rooftop, with anti-personnel munitions this time. Wedy supervises the cameras placed in Yoyogi, though she can't really conceal them, and then from her motorcycle she sweeps the roads around the area. Matsuda sits on a bench near the entrance with a mask and newspaper, ready for Misa to sit next to him, the investigator she has the most bond with. Aizawa and Mogi sweep the park, also masked up. Two of them are not enough to cover it. Even Aiber is running security in the hotel itself. He talked his way into the hotel's security room with ease, and he's double checking manually.

Above it all, Light and Ryuzaki, in room 619, monitoring a bank of mini TVs and an audio system linking them all. "Aizawa. Check sector 4. Something's rustling." "Wedy, did you see anyone get out of that truck?" "Matsuda, wake up." It's only 7:30 and the surrender is scheduled at 9, but the two fugitive women have to get there somehow. Ryuzaki wants to be ready. He wants to take them alive, but he knows it may not be an option.

Naomi and Misa do not have to arrive. They are here. They have hid in the building since about a half an hour after Misa made the call to surrender. Naomi, Misa, and Ryuk. The former two holding each other, hiding in room 108, and the latter not doing that. Going over the last bits of the plan on paper notes. Even if it's easy, there could be complications. Contingencies. One of them has a hard time expressing herself. Better to be very clear. Things that don't go according to plan are bad. And even then, a plan easy to think of, may not be easy to carry out. Someone may not have the will. 

"Mogi reporting. No suspicious packages. There was a stack of girlie mags in a bush, but I made sure it wasn't hollowed out to hide anything." Mogi doesn't dispose of it. He knows what it's like to be a young man.

They have a ritual now, Naomi supposes. They stand next to the door. She nicks a safe part of her wrist with a scalpel, winces at the pain she inflicts on herself for Misa's happiness, and a stream of dark red trickles out. Her ghoulish lover licks it up, puts her mouth on Naomi's wound, thirstily drinking like she was dying in the desert. Like she was desperately absorbing the essence of another human being because she didn't know how to be herself. She needs this. She needs to be reminded of their importance to each other. Blood trickles from the corner of her mouth. Naomi gets worried well before she taps Misa to tell her to stop sating her endless hunger for what it means to be a person.

"This is wedy. Stalled vehicle by the Italian deli. Traffic is slowed but not blocked. Keep an eye out, it could be intentional."

Ryuzaki nibbles a marshmallow Peep. His headset is on his neck, and he can only barely hear the chatter. Light puts a hand over his, and he looks over to the man, and he smiles. Only slightly reassured, but still reassured. He goes back to scanning the bank of miniature TVs they have assembled to watch the camera feeds.

"Watari reporting. Still no sign of owls or wrens." It is simply best practice to use code names for targets, and Watari does so even if the rest of the group has spotty compliance at best.

Naomi touches her forehead to Misa's. "Hmm. Uh. Try."

"Aizawa here. It was a squirrel."

Misa nods. "R-Right. We're going to, we're gonna try our hardest. To do what we have to."

"Yeah, it's Aiber. Still nothing at security. I'm going to check the halls real quick, see if there's any evidence of break-ins. Gonna let you know if there's anything hinky." He doesn't have a pina colada, he needs to be alert. He left it in the security office.

Ryuk stands in the hallway, on the other side of the door. Grinning, looking back and forth. Waiting for a guest. Finally, he sees the one he is looking for. Misa has managed to negotiate two more favors from him, at a cost of two apples each; there are six in her purse. The room number, she argued, was something Light wanted her to know anyway and therefore counted as half a favor for her and half a favor for Light. He's going to get two apples soon after //TIERRY MORELLO 69803213// walks in. Aiber, the blonde con man, is wearing a black wig but no mask, because that would make it very hard to do his job here. Ryuk waves his fingers through the door to get Naomi's attention. Then, as Aiber walks past, he looks right through Ryuk's body to check for evidence of a break-in on the doorknob. Of course Naomi would have to break in, nobody has checked in since Light set up, and how would she have known where to go before he arrived?

Swiftly and most importantly harmlessly, Ryuk snatches the inconspicuous wireless body mic from Aiber's collar. He has enough time to mutter "The fu--" before the door is kicked open into his face. With a grunt, he falls onto his ass, and when he looks up Naomi Misora is holding a gun on him. She looks down at the outline of the sawed-off shotgun in his pants, now visible that he's laying down and rumpled up. There's no way he can get to it, and he regrets having to rely on a gun to begin with. He puts his hands up.

Misa goes into her purse with both hands and produces two apples, which vanish before Aiber's eyes. She looks at him and pauses as she reads his name. Honestly, she is confused for a moment if he has the same name as Hulk Hogan, but that's Terry Bollea. She disarms him, guides him to his feet, and escorts him into the room before anyone else can see what's going on here. His means of communication and defense are gone in an instant. Because he was, he is now realizing as he is tied and gagged, set up to fail. Misa asks him what channel he wants the TV set to. He doesn't have an answer.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," says Aizawa. "All of us are out here chasing squirrels. Nobody's back at the base. How do we know they aren't back in there setting an ambush, or stealing something?"

Aiber is left in silence, safe. A note under the door explaining to the maid service that there is a captive inside, because by the time they read it, his imprisonment won't be necessary one way or the other. Naomi and Misa step onto the elevator like they own the place and punch in the 6th floor. It is slightly less safe than the stairs, but Naomi's new crutch isn't very good and isn't properly made for her height.

"If they're planning on attacking the headquarters," Light says, "there's no evidence they can steal, no prisoners they can or want to liberate, and no people to assassinate. With none of us there, the security system can be set to total lockdown. We'll be alerted to attempted entry. The security system can't be turned against them, so it couldn't be turned against us... but Ryuzaki set it up so they'll be able to be tracked once they leave." He looks to Ryuzaki again. "I don't think that will happen, though. I think Misa at least wants to turn herself over. Even if Naomi has other plans, her options are limited when she deviates from what Misa wants."

Ding. Sixth floor. Naomi and Misa walk next to the wall, carefully but not slowly. Walking next to the wall makes less noise if you're walking on floorboards that can creak, and better safe than sorry. Ryuk hovers to their side. Another two apples will be his. Naomi crouches, below the vision cone of the peephole, and she creeps up until she is pressed up against the door of room 619.

"If you say so," Aizawa mutters. Now he's sure that none of them will see Misa or Naomi tonight, and it's all just a waste of time.

The chain on the door to room 619 is undone. The bolt lock is turned to the unlocked position. The second bolt lock that Ryuzaki drilled in is also carefully undone by invisible hands. Ryuk hovers back through the door, and Naomi carefully pulls it open, lifting it upward so the weight of the door doesn't make the hinges creak. Misa puts two more apples in the hall for Ryuk to snatch. 

Ryuzaki pops the joints in his neck. Rolls his head back and forth. Tilts it backwards. He opens his eyes, to see Naomi and Misa in his room, pointing guns at him and Light.

"Put your hands up," Misa says shakily. Naomi closes the door behind them. "No. Don't make a sound, and disconnect your microphones. Then put your hands up." Slowly, carefully, silently, they do so. "Walk away from the equipment. Sit down on the beds." She gestures them over with her gun. Ryuzaki's eyes are wide and shocked. Light's are not. 

"Misa. Misa, be careful. Don't do anything rash," Light cautions. Naomi approaches him. She glares. She puts her gun to his temple, and all he says is "Please don't shoot me. I don't think Misa would be able to take it." She groans. Then she pistol-whips him across the face. She draws no blood.

"You found us," Ryuzaki says. "You ambushed us. But if you wanted to shoot us you could have done so. What do you want, Misa?"

"I, I want..." Her hand is shaking. "I just want to talk, okay?"

Naomi looks at her. "Uh. Proof. Proof?"

"R-right! We're here to prove I'm not Kira!" she added. "We'll talk about that!"

"You have the Death Note, don't you?" asks Light. "Doesn't that make you Kira?"

"Y-yeah, I do!" she barks. "Have the notebook!" She pulls the black notebook from her purse. When Naomi takes position behind her, she can safely stash her own pistol. "But that doesn't mean I'm evil, does it? I'm a good person!"

"Yes," Ryuzaki deadpans. "You're a very good person. That is why you are holding us hostage instead of surrendering peacefully."

"Control yourself, Ryuzaki!" Light hissed. "Misa wants to do the right thing. Don't you, Misa? I know you love me and you want to do the right thing. You just want some help to find out what that is."

"Y-yeah. Yeah!" Misa says. Naomi is looking over at her and blinking. "I don't want anybody to have to be shot. I want us all to be, to be okay. Maybe, maybe I am Kira. But maybe I'm a good Kira!"

Naomi looks shocked. Her gun hand wavers slightly. "Misa!"

"No! No!" Misa says, shaking her had rapidly. "Right! You're right! I'm not Kira! Light wants me to be Kira, that's all!"

"Misa..." says Light. "I just want whatever is best for you. Because I still love you, Misa. You know that, don't you?" He smiles. It's creepy.

"I do..." Misa whimpers. "I, I, I still love you, Light..." Naomi's hand goes to her shoulder. "...But, but I love Naomi too! I don't, I don't want to choose! I don't want to hurt her either, right?" The hand gets tighter. "And we, we can't just let you be Kira any more! Not like this!"

Ryuzaki tries to covertly look around for a weapon, something he can use. There is nothing. Some especially fluffy pillows. "Misa. You told me Light was Kira. I believed it earlier, but now evidence is against it. What do you know that I don't?"

"He, he, he he was sending messages to Isamu Egawa!" Misa stutters. "That was how Isamu knew to contact me instead of Naomi!"

"You had ample opportunity to send a secret message to Kira-Y," Ryuzaki says in an even voice. "I need more to go on than that."

"Uh. Hnn. Umm." Naomi stammers over a word.

Light tries to be conciliatory. "Naomi, maybe you can write it do--"

"SHUT UP!" Misa shouts. "Shut up and let her talk! It's your fault she's like this, the least you can do is let her talk!"

"...Ah. Letter. Letter," Naomi finally gets. "Misa." Tears are starting to form in her eyes. 

"Right! Light left me this letter about how he loves me and I should kill you and be Kira!" She throws it onto Ryuzaki's bed. "He just, he made it in different handwriting, so it looked like I faked it!"

Ryuzaki and Light share a meaningful glance. 

"You can't keep letting him do it, Ryuzaki!" Misa continues. "Naomi, Naomi wanted to just kick in the door and shoot you. I wanted to give you a chance. I know you want to be a good person, Light."

"...Because you love me," Light repeated.

"...I do. I love you, Light," Misa said back. "So I don't, I don't want bad things to happen to you. I want you to do good. I want you to get the help you need."

Naomi looks to Light again, and to Misa. "Ah. Ah. Misa." The tears are welling thicker. 

"We want you to get the help you need too, Misa," Ryuzaki says. With the tone of someone placating a grizzly that could get angry at any moment. "But you tried to kill Light. You're scaring us, Misa. Maybe the things you think are happening aren't really happening. Have you been taking your medication?"

"I didn't try to kill Light!" she squeals. "I didn't, I wouldn't do that! Because I loved Light! And I'm not psycho either, I just, you know, I was on something to keep me up after my parents died! I don't think it really did anything for me! Light, he, he's Kira and he wants me to be too!" Naomi squeezed again. "Confess!"

"Okay. Okay," Light says. "Let's say I am Kira. And I still love you either way. So why do I want you to be Kira, Misa?"

"Because, because I can see people's names!" Misa said. "They're, they're floating over people's heads. Rem said, she said she was giving me the eyes back. That I had before. So... so then I can help you. And be useful. You could, you could only give me the notebook when you're sure someone is really bad. And you can, you can use all your L investigating to double check. And then nobody will make any mistakes. And people will be safe."

"Misa..." Tears are starting to trickle down Naomi's cheeks. She looks to Light. She holds her gun. Light looks back at her. He knows she won't fire, not when it would destroy Misa's heart like this. And indeed she doesn't.

"You can't kill people and be on the side of Justice, Misa," says Ryuzaki.

"Of course you can!" she snaps. "People do it all the time! Cops kill people because they're dangerous and there's no other way to stop them, right? If, if if if someone is so well connected that the courts won't do anything to them, and they, and they like to murder people's families because it's FUN, then how else do you describe that? Someone who's dangerous, and there's no other way to stop them!"

Light nods. Slowly. No sudden movements. "Kira did a very good thing when he killed the man who killed your parents. Okay? I think everyone in this room agrees with that." He casts a glance to Ryuzaki, prompting him to begrudgingly nod. "Maybe we can help you, Misa. If Ryuzaki agrees with us, we can take you on. And keep you safe. And we can keep Naomi safe too. I want to make sure you're safe, Misa. Because I love you. But you have to accept that you'll be doing what we say. And that means surrendering."

Misa nods. She's choking back tears. "I'll do what you say, if you, if you mean it. And Naomi is fine too." Naomi's breath is getting more rapid. She looks like a caged animal. Perhaps she is trying to find a word, but cannot even say 'uh'.

"Misa," Light says. "Ryuzaki doesn't want L to help Kira. You really need to show him that you are serious. Okay? I love you, but that just isn't enough. You need to make it clear to us both that you aren't going to do anything bad. So you have to go outside and surrender to the investigators. Okay? I love you, Misa."

She smiles and it isn't happy. "I love you too, Light." She kneels down to drop her purse and leave her things. But she doesn't do that. There is a sheet of paper in her hand, and she says to herself. "//LESLIE... TAYLOR... LAWLIET.//"

Naomi's eyes go wide with horror. So do Ryuzaki's, or Leslie's. Naomi pulls Misa to her feet, and yanks the paper out of her hands. Her face is painted with panic.

"No! No! It's okay!" Misa protests. "I did it all ahead of time! We're gonna, we're going to have a long talk about what justice means. I even said he listened to you when you spoke. We're gonna, we're gonna tell him, we're going to find out what it is that would make it okay for him to let Kira be part of the organization, and then he's gonna do that, set it all up. He's, I made sure he would only do it in a way that made it okay for him. You know it's important! You know, you know how important revenge is! He can't, but, but, we can do what justice can't, if he helps us!"

Naomi cannot speak. Cannot find words. She can only look horrified and betrayed.

"I know, I know it wasn't the plan, but, but, but, Light wasn't confessing!" Misa says like she's justifying it to herself. "Now we, everyone can get what they want!" 

Naomi looks around. To Misa. To Light. To Ryuzaki. The latter is starting to hyperventilate, touching his chest, trying to feel if he is under something's control. He looks up to Naomi. She looks so sorry, so guilty that this has happened. And he nods to her.

Naomi grabs a pillow from the bed. She folds it in half to make an impromptu silencer. She puts her gun up to it. She grits her teeth, closes her eyes, averts her face, but Ryuzaki isn't moving. The pillow muffles the gunshot.

WHUD!

Blood sprays from the dead center of Ryuzaki's chest, spattering everyone in the room. He lands facedown in a spreading pool of blood staining the comforter.

Instantly, Naomi's aim is on Light. Misa jumps in the way. "No! No, don't! He didn't, he didn't do that! It was my fault! I'm, I'm sorry, I thought, I thought it was okay!"

"I'm very sorry," Light says, his sincerity manufactured. "I didn't want to hurt anyone. I made a mistake."

Naomi's hand is shaking.

"Don't, I mean, don't shoot him!" Misa says in panic. "I thought... I'm sorry! I don't know what came over me! I thought, it seemed like it was okay, I don't, I don't know why!" Her chin quivers. "I made, I made another mistake, didn't I?"

"It's okay," Light says. He cannot help a little ribbon of satisfaction being woven into his voice. "You made a mistake. But she forgives you, because you are going to try harder. And she loves you. Isn't that right?"

Naomi doesn't nod or shake her head. She just stares at Light. 

"And I love you too, Misa," he continues. "I love that you want to give me a second chance. Just like Naomi gave you. And I'll make sure that all of us, we'll be happy. Just like you wanted. L and Kira can work together. And nobody has to suffer like you. And nobody has to suffer like Naomi. Right? Isn't that right?"

Naomi's face is now the picture of disgust. Of self-loathing. Every feeling of uselessness she ever had, summoned back to her mind. Powerlessness is the only rule of this world.

"R-right!" Misa says. Through tears. "I love you, Light. I love you both so much. I know, I know you're a good person. We're going to help people."

Naomi grimaces. Brings the gun back to bear. There is one way to end this.

"Please, no!" Misa protests, standing in the way of the shot again. "I know he's done some bad things, but, you don't understand. He's not a bad person. He means so much to me, he only, if you only could see in him what I see... He, he deserves a second chance, doesn't he? He only wanted to do good, right?" She's nodding, like she's encouraging agreement. "We can, we can all be happy this way. You can make sure we don't mess up again. And we don't, I don't have to lose either of you. Please. Please, Naomi. I love him so much. He saved me. I love you too. We all deserve to be happy."

Naomi's aim is on Misa now. She did swear that if Misa went bad, she would kill her if it was necessary. Light smiles ever so slightly at her tormented expression. How could she kill Misa? She'd never be able to kill her only connection to the world. She grimaces. Covers her face with her hand. Back to the wall, she slowly slides down it. Shoulders heaving with sobs. And she holsters her weapon.

"You... You made the right choice, Naomi," says Light. "The crew is probably suspicious we haven't said anything in so long. Misa and I need to escape first. We can, there's a place we can go to be hidden." He picks up Ryuzaki's body by the shoulder, and he sees the spark of life has not left those dark eyes. With Misa and Naomi unable to see his face, Light grins sadistically. If he could put his thumb in the bullet wound, he would. Stomp on the throat of the world's greatest detective. Let him know how utterly defeated he is. He hopes it's the last thing Ryuzaki sees before he passes away to oblivion.

Ryuzaki's face is betrayal. Despair. Utter, crushing defeat. He knows how thoroughly he has been beaten and that he never had a single friend. Light wishes he had a camera. He wishes he could bottle this moment and drink it every day for the rest of his life like a fine aged wine.

And when he turns around, his face is nervous and conciliatory again. "Naomi, if the cops arrest you for murder, you'll be fine. You know that." Naomi nods from the floor. "So I'll make sure you are taken into L's custody peaceably, from the police, so there's no need for anyone to kill you. Once you're there for 13 days, I can get you out, because you can't be Kira. It will take some doing, but, but I'll make sure you come back. So Misa can see you and talk to you. But Misa and I need to leave first, okay?"

Slow nod. The sobbing of a defeated woman. She stands. She picks up Ryuzaki's body, cradling him like the Pieta.

Light takes Misa from the room. He checks the hallway for observers, and then begins grinning like a maniac. "Great job," he says. "You did a great job, Misa." 

"I just wanted to help," she says modestly. She unzips her coat. "It's, it's getting hot. Let's go before someone finds us. Naomi had to take the elevator, but we can take the stairs."

"Good idea." Light is not out of the woods yet, but the light of civilization is visible. He takes Misa by the hand and leads her to a out of the way rear stairwell. It's empty, unobserved. He could run down the six flights as if they were nothing, right now, but Misa is all nerves and guilt. He graciously leads her. He will still need her.

In the stairwell, with nobody around to listen in, Misa stops him. Grabs his shirt and pulls him in close. "Did I, did I do good? Did I do the right thing? I want, I want to be useful to you, Light..."

He smiles. As reassuring as he can fake it. "You did the right thing, Misa. You're very useful to me, and I'm very happy. I love you so much."

"Good!" she laughs nervously. "Good, good. I'm, I'm really happy, Light. But, you know, uh. Naomi. She's useful too. You have to promise me you'll help her. You won't betray her or anything. She's a really good person who has had a lot of bad things happen to her. You need to make sure she's okay, and she can do a lot for you. You need to promise you will listen to her so she helps you not make any mistakes."

"Of course!" he lies. "You'll be there too, Misa. You'll spend lots of time together. You'll work together, just like you have been. It's okay for you to love us both."

She smiles weakly. "I'm not stupid, Light," she says. "I know... I know what you did. What your plan was. I never was immune like everyone thought. Rem was just protecting me. So when she died..."

"Misa, what are you talking about?"

"...you, then you wrote my name in the Death Note. So I'd fall back in love with you." She does not seem very upset by her deduction.

"...No. Misa, you know, I would never want to hurt you..."

"It feels so good, you know? To be a part of something. To be useful. To know you're making the world a better place and, and I'm helping you do that. To not be so afraid anymore. I'm not mad. I just, I need to see it. They had to be careful with the cop guy, because he can't shoot anyone, they had to make sure they didn't do anything to contradict the entry. And... You know. I think it's really romantic to know how you're going to die."

Light is still looking like he doesn't know what she's talking about.

"It's okay. I'm not mad," she says serenely. "I know how important what you're doing is. And you're trustworthy, you will make sure that Naomi is happy too. Killing me doesn't matter. I just... remember what I told you, Light? It's okay if you use me up."

At this, he smiles. This is the only thing she ever said that got a reaction from him. He huddles her against a wall, and he clicks the dial of his watch three times. 

//KITAMURA KOREYOSHI. AUGUST 24 2007 10:18 PM. MURDERED BY APHASIC WOMAN.//

//LIGHT YAGAMI. DROWNING. 8:14 PM.//

//MISA AMANE. SUICIDE. FALLS BACK IN LOVE AFTER READING LETTER FROM HER EX THAT REMINDS HER OF HOW MUCH SHE CARED FOR HIM. REALIZES SHE MUST DO EVERYTHING SHE CAN TO HELP THE CAUSE OF KIRA, INCLUDING DYING ON OCTOBER 10TH 12:06 PM TO AVOID SUSPICION.//

The writing is very small. It must have taken a lot of time and concentration. Time alone, with Ryuzaki not watching. Misa reads the entries and nods. "Okay. That should be easy to keep to. I will, I, the only way I can kill anyone is with my Death Note. But I, you know, I wasn't all that useful without it anyway."

"It's okay, Misa," he says, reveling in his power over her. "You're still very useful to me. You are going to help Kira a lot."

They begin walking again. Speaking in hushed whispers to each other. No investigator seems to have made them, Light has made sure they had a blind spot.

"Light, I... Naomi guessed that you were going to make up pages with fake instructions. And, and Isamu was going to plant them somewhere. So it would look like other people were smuggling pages, right? But I, but we, I didn't know what I was supposed to do yet. She got every page Isamu had before he could hide them and I, I didn't know I needed to hide them for you. Once I did, I didn't have any chances to."

"Ssh. Ssh. It's okay. We can make up some more. We have plenty of time to create more fake leads, and you can even help me figure out where to put them, okay? You're going to make sure Kira never stops making the world safe." She smiles at that. Warm. Genuine.

"Yeah. You, you planned for everything, didn't you?" she says. She seems so much more at peace.

"I did," he says. "I have a place here in the hotel they won't find us. I know you would have used a room, but my place is much safer. We'll escape safely, and we'll talk about how to make it look like you took me hostage." He smiles. It's far more predatory. "But don't worry. That's not how people are going to remember you. Once this is over, you're going to be canonized. A Saint of Kira. They'll make a statue to remember you."

"That's... That's really nice, Light. It really sounds like you care."

"None of this would be possible without you," he tells her. Laying it on thick, just to be safe. Lies like this are easy to tell. "Your sacrifices are going to go down in history. The Woman Who Loved Kira." They emerge into the employee area on the first floor. He takes both of her hands in his, and looks into her face.

"It's funny, you know?" she says, avoiding eye contact. "There was always some part of me that wanted you. Not just like that. Wanted Kira to be right. Wanted to live together with you and hear you say you loved me and I was important. Have a... a happily ever after where both of us were safe and peaceful. Where we just got to live. But it was never going to happen, was it?"

Light starts to say something about how what she is doing now will ensure everyone else gets to have their happily ever after. But he stops himself when he squeezes Misa's left hand. His expression becomes shocked disgust.

"I guess that's why I had to do all this. I had to make sure, you know?" Misa says.

"Misa? Are you... Are you missing fingers?"

"I had to... I had to make sure that part of me was dead forever." Misa holds up her own piece of paper. The top margin of a sheet of notebook paper, unmarked, not useful to make a bracelet with. She's smiling now, and laughing a few weak, dry, laughs. Because it says:

//NAOMI MISORA. HYPOTHERMIA. IMMEDIATELY REALIZES THAT SHE IS NOT IMMUNE TO KIRA'S POWER, AND SO SHE SHOULD WALK INTO THE FREEZER AT YOKO CREAMERY. SHE IMMERSES HERSELF IN THE FREEZING WATER OF THE PLASTIC POOL AND KEEPS HER ARMS AND LEGS OUTSIDE. SHE DOESN'T FEEL AFRAID AT ALL AS HER CORE TEMPERATURE DROPS BELOW THE FATAL LEVEL AT 1:00 AM, IN A WAY THAT MOST READILY ALLOWS HER TO BE QUICKLY REVIVED, AND NONE OF HER TISSUES ARE PERMANENTLY DAMAGED OR FROSTBITTEN.//

//MISA AMANE. HYPOTHERMIA. IMMEDIATELY REALIZES THAT SHE IS NOT IMMUNE TO KIRA'S POWER, AND SO SHE SHOULD WALK INTO THE FREEZER AT YOKO CREAMERY. SHE IMMERSES HERSELF IN THE FREEZING WATER OF THE PLASTIC POOL AND KEEPS HER ARMS AND LEGS OUTSIDE. SHE DOESN'T FEEL AFRAID AT ALL AND LOOKS VERY BEAUTIFUL AND PEACEFUL AS HER CORE TEMPERATURE DROPS BELOW THE FATAL LEVEL AT 1:15 AM, IN A WAY THAT MOST READILY ALLOWS HER TO BE QUICKLY REVIVED, AND NONE OF HER TISSUES ARE PERMANENTLY DAMAGED OR FROSTBITTEN.//

Read 'em and weep.

"Only one of them worked. It's, you know, you have to test your hypothesis." Misa says through her meager laughter, "She already had an entry, so she couldn't be affected again. I know Rem wasn't supposed to tell us, she didn't, but, but it wasn't hard to put together that she was protecting me." Another chuckle breaks her face up. "I bet, I bet the ice cream shop, they were really confused why they came in to work and the whole back room was full of warm water, they had two kiddie pools, all the hot chocolate was used up, and their microwave was surrounded with empty bags of IV fluid. They probably didn't even notice all the ice cream Naomi ate."

Light's eyes are wide with horror.

"It shut my body down in the right way to let me get turned on again, but, it wasn't a sure thing," Misa continues. Like she was just telling a story to a friend. "Once my heart stopped, I think that was it for the magic. Like, it stopped paying attention, stopped making sure I'd be revivable. If Naomi wasn't there to start warming me up the instant my heart stopped beating, it probably would have froze enough to keep me dead. And I said no frostbite, but, my pinky and ring finger were dangling in the water... they went bad quick. The hospital said they were dead, and I needed to lose them to prevent gangrene. So, uh, snip-snip!" She giggled. 

She pulled off her choker, revealing the whisper-thin scar on her neck made by the chain of her pendant spinning around. As if her head was sliced off with a cut so clean it never fell, and simply healed back together. "I'm exhausted and I'm freezing. They helped some when I got to the hospital but, I've just, just been so tired and so cold ever since it happened. But I could walk. With a fistful of caffeine pills and painkillers I could focus on the other crazy shit going on instead. I might have problems with my body temperature for the rest of my life. But it was worth it, Light. To keep myself safe from you."

"Misa. Misa. Hang on. Don't do anything silly, Misa," Light says, backing slowly, hands up. "I was only doing what you would have wanted. You told me I could use you up. I can't be held responsible for your wishes."

"I wanted it so bad, you know? She could have just shot you in the gut and made you confess. We didn't even have to meet Yotsuba to do that. But I wanted it so bad. We jumped through all these hoops, we made things way worse, because I kept believing, I knew, I KNEW that there was a good person inside of you. And I had to do something to show the world it was there." She sighs. Morose. regretful. "But I was wrong, wasn't I? I don't think there's a person inside of you at all."

"Misa!" he hisses. "If I, if you go tell the investigation this, I'll be ruined. They will kill me. There will be no more Kira to keep you safe. Criminals, they will get away with anything they want and it will be your fault!"

"Light. You never cared at all, did you?" she asks. "You have no idea who I am or what I do. I'm not going to go and tell the investigation."

Light sighs in relief for exactly one second.

"I appear in public in this dress all the time. You don't even know where my microphone clips to it."

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

I cradled Ryuzaki's, Leslie's... no, Ryuzaki's, bleeding body. He looked at my face with horror and regret. Light and Misa left, and the door clicked shut behind them. Ryuzaki whimpered. "You're betraying justice... you're betraying Raye..." 

So I handed him a pamphlet. He looked at it. Looked at me. Looked at it. His eyes went wide. Color went back into his face as I got to work tearing his shirt open and applying a styptic pencil to the bullet wound. 

"This is... this is the worst idea anyone's ever had," he moaned, as his hand went slack and he dropped the informational flyer.

//WHAT IS DEEP CIRCULATORY ARREST? Deep Circulatory Arrest is a surgical procedure where the patient's heart and bloodflow completely stop in order to allow surgeons to perform extremely delicate surgery on the aorta or fragile cerebral aneurysms. Though it is frightening to think the patient is technically "dead" during the procedure, the risks of a DCA operation, when performed correctly, are only a few times higher than that of surgery with anesthesia.//

Ryuzaki groaned, arm across his eyes. "'Isn't there an operation where they kill you on the table so they can work on you without your heart messing things up, and then they Frankenstein you back?'" Didn't even try to sound like Misa's voice when quoting her. "So now I've been saved by the fact that Misa Amane's coworker is a medical-themed model. I would be angrier that you inflicted a dangerous medical procedure on me, if I hadn't planned on doing it to myself the moment I figured out if the 13 day rule was real or not." He clutched his chest and I batted his hand away, I was slathering him with analgesic and applying the gauze to go under the bandage. "I'm assuming you used the pillow to decrease the bullet's velocity and get it jammed next to my aorta? I hope Misa wrote down that I wouldn't be in danger until then, and it could be safely removed with no lasting side effects."

I shook my head yes. He looked horrified. Then I slowly, tongue in my teeth, nodded. Damn it. 

"Ah. Right. I'm impressed, miss Misora," he said. Then he stopped to choke with pain. "You used a, agh, used Kira's power to create a homing bullet that wouldn't kill someone. That was why you closed your eyes, so the force of the Death Note could make sure the bullet hit correctly without your interference. Very creative. I assume Misa is wearing a wire to get his confession? Aiber's, of course."

Ryuzaki couldn't stop, I guess. Shot in the chest, the moment he thought he was going to live he started throwing out deductions and being condescending. Now that he was clearly comfortable, time for another shock to his system. I tapped him with the cover to //ARVC-5//, still wrapped in rubber bands. Ryuk waved.

Ryuzaki startled at the god of death. But only startled. He had a very specific date with Death coming and heart failure from a shinigami sighting wasn't involved. He took a second to catch his slow, painful breath. "A god of death. A god of death..." He grimaced. Looked over to me to confirm I saw it. "Hand me my headset, O Death, because you are the least important thing happening right now. I need to hear this in real time, I don't want to wait for the recording."

Ryuk laughed, but obliged him. I taped the gauze on Ryuzaki's chest tight, and I wrapped an Ace bandage around his torso for good measure. Then I took the other headset. I wanted to hear it too. I wanted to hear what Wedy and Aiber and Watari and Mogi and Aizawa and Matsuda were all hearing.

And it was goooooooood. I grinned. It was touch and go for a bit, I was worried that Misa overplayed her hand vamping for Light to pick up her cues, but no. There he was. He admitted it. He was about to tell her everything while he thought she was totally on his side.

Everything went exactly as planned.

"A sociopath won't slip up due to emotion," Ryuzaki said. "But only if he logically but mistakenly believes it to be to his advantage." He sat up. Clearly in pain, but adrenaline was pumping through him. "Let's go. Let's close this case." I handed him my crutch, and I helped him up. Ryuk wouldn't help even if he could.

"All units... nnngh... I want radio silence," he groaned when Misa and Light stopped talking for a bit. "Stand down against Misora and Amane. Light is Kira, and he's going to confess. I want all of you to make sure nobody gets into or out of the Hotel Palace Shibuya. Watari, get cellular jamming active, and make sure we're picking up Yagami's audio clearly."

We stopped back on the first floor. Had to spring Aiber, who had his earpiece still in his ear. He didn't have a mic, so we came in on him shouting curses in French. He could have carried Ryuzaki, come along with us. But Ryuzaki thought for a moment. "Aiber. Get to security. Lock the doors if you can, make sure nothing goes out to the police."

One less witness. One less person to interfere. Was he helping me do what came next, or simply resigned to its inevitability?

I heard him tell her that she could make new decoys, that he had places to hide them. I grinned. That was it. He was done. He didn't have any outstanding sheets hidden. Misa saw where he wrote her name. We neutralized him, there were no loose ends. She worked him beautifully.

I did it. I won. Light confessed. Misa and I both won. Light fucked up. Light thought Misa was his forever. Light thought I would throw away my responsibility and trust Misa instead of myself, that I'd do anything foolish rather than be alone again, and she'd lead me to ruin. But he didn't know what this relationship was. She wasn't his toy. I didn't throw away my responsibility, because she WAS my responsibility. I did everything in my power to ensure her success. She was right now banishing that part of herself that loved him, needed him, hated herself. My chest swelled with pride. 'I had to make sure that part of me was dead forever.' Beautiful. Poetry.

We got him, Raye. We got him. 

The service elevator dinged open. Light screamed immediately. "Help! Help me! It's Kira! Kira's going to kill me unless you--"

Then he saw who it was. He grabbed Misa's purse and ran. "Hey -- give that back!" He fled around the corner, not enough time to take a shot. 

Light was running to the lobby, a huge well lit centrally accessible area. He wasn't thinking. He had no way out. For the first time in a long, long time. 

"His Death Note paper is in his watch, by the way," Misa said directly into her microphone. "He pulled the knob thingy three times to make it pop out." Then she helped me carry Ryuzaki forward. To follow Light's slapping footsteps.

We didn't have to follow far. The moment he stepped from the employee area out into the lobby, he was clotheslined by an outstretched arm. Light's legs kept going, he didn't, and he fell to the tile floor clutching his throat. Matsuda stepped out from behind the corner.

The lobby was quite big, for Japan anyway. Polished tile floors that looked almost like marble. A wide empty space centered around a fountain, a central column with water pouring out around it. Ferns and fronds along the walls. A design of a crown in a circle, the symbol of the hotel, set into the floor. A large revolving door at the front, now still. Above us, the center rooms all overlooked the lobby over brass balcony handrails. Glass elevators, also still, led up and down. Customer staircase on the right, with the hall that led to the slightly less fancy first-floor rooms. The path from the reception desk went past a room full of overpriced toiletries, and forked off to lead to the pool. He was finally flushed out into the open. Four passages. Zero ways out.

Light gagged, but found his voice quickly enough to shout "Matsuda! Matsuda! You have to help me! Misa found us! Misa, she's used the Death Note on Ryuzaki, and now she's, she's turning people against me! She wants to take over L, you have to, you have to hide me!"

"Are we getting Yagami's audio?" Ryuzaki asked into his headset. And we were. "Good. Kira is down. Everyone else, keep the screen up. I don't want civilians interfering with Kira's confession." Then he stared up at me. Big, sunken eyes. 

"Let me see your watch, Light," Matsuda growled, standing over him. "If she's lying about you, your watch should be fine."

"Sure! She made that up! Right here, look..." Matsuda reached down, and Light tried to grab him. Tried to take him hostage somehow, threaten to stab his neck with a pen. It went about as well as you'd expect. Matsuda elbowed him in the gut, drove the base of his palm into Light's jaw, twisted his arm, and sent him back to the ground while ripping the watch from his wrist. Kira hit the floor like a sack of bricks.

Light frantically dug in the purse he'd stolen from Misa. Tried to catch his breath. To do something. But there was nowhere to run. Misa didn't even look at him as she walked Ryuzaki over to the stairs. Her other hand was in her pocket, where her gun was, so Light couldn't snatch it.

One. Two. Three clicks. Matsuda's face turned to pure disgust. "You son of a bitch, Yagami. You son of a BITCH!" Light tried to pull out the notebook, but the fake cover on the ordinary composition book was already slipping off. He threw a fistful of makeup out of the purse in frustration, scampered along the ground toward the front doors.

And ran face-first into the glass. If Matsuda hadn't locked them, Aiber would have. No way out, Light.

Matsuda and I closed in on him. He spun around, back to the door, held out his hands. "Okay. Okay. Okay. Everyone just calm down, okay? Let's, let's be reasonable. Let's think about this rationally. I can't, I can't, you can't let this, I can't LOSE like THIS..."

I grabbed him by his tie. I yanked him away from the door, sent him sprawling onto the Hotel Palace seal. Gun leveled at his head. He didn't dare move, didn't dare breathe, while I pulled out a note card. The one I had set aside. Chibi-Naomi, cutely pushing the box into the gear machine. //HOW: I am asking a question about something's method or origin!//

"Kill."

"I, I, I, okay, okay, you got me," he stammered, "I killed people with the Death Note, okay? I, I, I got news reports around the world about criminals, and, and, I saw their faces, and I wrote their names."

"That isn't the question she asked you, Light." Misa and Matsuda, in unison.

"I... it was... The busjacking, okay? I was on the bus that got hijacked. So was Raye. He showed me his ID, okay, so, so I'd trust him! I knew his name and face, so, so, so, I didn't know the other agents... I left the notebook on the subway. I made him write the names of the other agents in the notebook, I figured, I figured he couldn't help but think of their faces too. Then, then, he was, I couldn't keep him around, he was too DANGEROUS, He was trying to let criminals GET AWAY, I--"

I stomped on his ankle. He screamed in pain. Heads were poking over the guardrail from the luxury rooms above and I did not care. There went his chances of running. He looked around for help. Ryuzaki was leaning against the wall now, clutching his bloody wound. "Naomi, if he doesn't tell you how he killed you in the next ten seconds I want you to shoot him in the stomach."

"Okay! Okay!" I drew in closer. I crouched right by his face. "I, I, you were looking on your own for Raye's killer! I found you, I found you on the way to police HQ! You knew I was on the bus that was hijacked, you, you were going to have me KILLED! I, I told you I needed your name, you gave a fake, I, I, I couldn't let you stop me! I told you I was with L, I had to have your real name to verify your identity if you were coming to help!"

Of course. How much did I even learn here? I died because I wouldn't stick to my guns. Because I couldn't trust myself. Or I went for an easy way out. Lots of flaws could explain it. I already -- god damn it. Of course. Light walked me through my last steps. I remembered pieces of it, but wrote it off as false memory, filling him in the gaps. That was it. That smug face he made, looking up from his watch, that was real. That was the last thing I saw. He might have said something asinine like "Sorry, time for you to die!" before the magic kicked in, but I doubt it. Probably just smiled like a child pulling the wings off of a fly. Why the fuck did I play along? Why would him claiming to be with L mean anything? Anyone could claim that. L had worked with me before. It was a dismal case that meant nothing, but he knew what my face looked like.

"So I, so I, I wrote in the circumstance, I waited for your name... You gave it to me! You did that! You could have lied! But, but you chose not to, even with the risks, I, I said, that you would want to kill yourself so, so you didn't inconvenience anyone, and nobody found you, but, but, I never said it would be painful!"

I didn't know who I hated more: him or myself.

Why would I choose to give him my name? Was I suddenly overcome by suicidal stupidity? No. I was weak. I was a coward. I didn't want to trust myself. I was desperate for someone, anyone, to take the responsibility out of my hands. I was someone useless who only tricked people into thinking she accomplished anything. Who sat around and waited for murderers to give her clues and waste her time.

No, wait, I do know who I hated more. It was him. Because when I was a useless fuckup, it was only hurting myself. I smashed the butt of my pistol into his nose, sending blood spraying all over him. Soaking into his white dress shirt.

Hate that had been seething inside me, eating away at everything I was inside, was finally pouring out into the world. Where it belonged. Pouring out of his face in a steaming gush of dark red blood. He whimpered in pain, and I grinned. He was suffering. Good.

"That, that was it!" he shouted in panic. "I didn't do anything to you after--"

"I saw your watch. You said she had to murder Kitamura," Misa snapped. My hate was being reflected in her big blue eyes right now. Her savior was moaning on the ground, utterly destroyed. Maybe she hated herself just as much as I did in this moment, for being tricked by him. For willingly giving herself over to him. But she was relishing his pain as much as I was.

And that made my stomach churn. Just a bit. Just the slightest unease. That was, it wasn't... I pulled back. Gave him some room to breathe. 

"Okay! Okay! I did!" he held up his arms. No idea what was going through my head. "But, but, you wanted to! You wanted to do that anyway! You weren't really under anyone's control but your own!"

I suppose he was right. Since it didn't work. He'd still tried to make my soul his plaything. Everything he touched was limitless violation and degradation. Maybe it was a good thing I failed. I'd been able to fight off his hideous influence. But I did it by being weak. Being someone it was okay to just hurt.

"Tell us everything else you did. Now." Ryuzaki wheezed. He said nothing about lowering my weapon. He wasn't taking Light back to a briefing room, whether he wanted to or not. 

"Fine! Fine! Just don't shoot me!" He was trying to slide back on his ass, put any distance between me and him. He left a streak of blood on the Hotel Palace's emblem as he put his back up against the nearly silent fountain. And he spilled his guts. Finding the notebook. His first kill. Ryuk. Lind L. Tailor. Joining the investigation. Plotting to kill L and take his place. He tried to make everything sound so reasonable. He showed not a hint of remorse. Nothing he said told us anything Misa didn't know or Ryuzaki didn't guess.

He must have seen my scowl deepen. Waved his hands out to the sides wildly. "And, and, and MISA CAME TO ME! Okay? That was, she had her OWN shinigami, her OWN notebook, her OWN plan, it was ALL HER! SHE put herself in danger! SHE got caught, SHE was going to be tortured! If she never showed up at all..." He gasped. He pushed himself further and further back against the fountain, now he was half-crouching against it. "And she, and she -- you know the rest! I sent Rem out to find someone new with the notebook. I would have given up my memories too, I was willing to, I was going to give them up! Stop being Kira! But YOU had to come along, you had to put MISA in danger... I had to stay!"

"Ryuk. The entity. He contacted Isamu Egawa. He alerted Rem by screaming into the microphone, didn't he?" Ryuk nodded. Grinned, or at least grinned wider than usual. "That was why you winced. Only you could hear it." Ryuzaki winced himself. He should have been lying down. But he wanted to watch. He had to be here too. "Then you undoubtedly spoke to him through your game. Right under my nose."

"Yup! Yup! Ha ha!" Light's nervous laughter threatened to eat him alive. "You guessed it! Now, now everyone knows everything, and we can, we can all just calm down and think about this rationally. You can, you can take me to jail."

"I could." He could not. "You got close, didn't you? You had me fooled. But it looks like I won, Light. I beat you."

"THE FUCK YOU DID!" he screamed, pride all of a sudden incensed. He finally got his way to his feet, kneeling against the stone lip of the fountain for support. "You got lucky, that's all! Misa came and ruined my plans at the last moment! Naomi showed up right when I was going to surrender my memories! Then she, she goes off half-cocked, she gets a hunch, she makes a guess, right, and it HAPPENS to be true! You were ready to make me L, it was all these two! You got outwitted by an, an, an..."

"You got outwitted, Light," Ryuzaki said with a smile. "You and your magical relic and your two gods of death and your fortunate timing and your cooperative accomplice chosen at random and your incredibly convenient rules got outwitted. L is an institution. My employees... hff... validated the trust I put in them."

"My God," Matsuda whispered. "This whole time. This whole time. I trusted him. I admired him!"

He stared at me. At my gun. He wanted to say something, I could tell. The words 'brain-damaged cripple' were dancing behind his eyes. So were the words 'don't shoot me'. The latter won. I took half a step forward, and he fell on his ass, backwards into the fountain. The blood staining his clothing blossomed out into the water. 

"I can't... I can't lose like this." Light muttered to himself, shocked. "This can't be it... the, the God of the new world..."

You're not a god. You're a rapist, a murderer, and you're about to be nothing at all. 

I grabbed him by the collar. Pulled his face forward. Jammed the gun to his temple. And I issued a very simple command: "Beg."

"Wh-- what?"

"Beg!"

"She wants you to beg for your life, Light," Misa said. "Give her a reason to send you to jail. Give her a reason not to kill you. Anything."

I dropped him back into the water so he could talk. "Okay, okay, okay, Misa, you, you know me. You love me. You remember, you remember how much you loved me. You don't want to see me die, do you? You don't want to know nobody will be keeping you safe the way I did. I did, I did all of this so I could save your life, Misa. You don't, you can't let her kill me!"

"You thought my love for you was wavering enough that you were going to kill me to get it back," she spat. "Yeah. Yeah, I've got all of my... I've got all of her memories. As soon as I touched the notebook, I remembered everything that made her want to serve you. I remember everything about how you made her feel. They all came back like they had always been there. Light, do you have any idea..." Her voice cracked with a dry laugh. 

"Do you have any idea how easy it was to decide between you? There wasn't some kind of war in my mind, or a struggle to keep my mind from her. The Second Kira was hollow." She shook her head. "She got the Death Note when she was at the lowest, most vulnerable, most fragile point in her life. You? You were just fine, Light. You had your memories this whole time and you didn't care about all the suffering you saw. When I got her memories back I puked my guts out. It hurt me so much to know how awful she was. Every time I think about her I want to die. I was the one who wanted to kick in the door and blow your head off, Light. Naomi wanted to make sure we did it all the right way."

"You can't trust her, you can't trust her you CAN'T TRUST HER!" he shouted. "She's a lunatic! You can't listen to her! Both of them, both of them are insane! You need me! Matsuda, Matsuda! You know! You talked to me about it! You said, you said if you didn't know if Kira wasn't doing the right thing! That maybe, maybe he really should work under the police's supervision! Right? You, you can't be okay with this!"

"well you know what Light, I think I've come to a conclusion about that moral dilemma," Matsuda snarled. "Why don't we all ask ourselves what Kira would do to someone who murdered innocents, forced them to violate everything they cared about, and handed out his Death Note to another amoral psychopath so he'd murder more innocents long enough to get the heat thrown off?" I stepped aside long enough for Matsuda to punch him in the stomach. "I can't believe I ever admired you. You were going to murder every single person who ever put their trust in you. You disgust me."

Light couldn't stop his manic laughter at this point. "Ryu-- Ryuzaki! You can't be okay with this! You can't! You were, you refused to do ANYTHING until you were certain you were right! You are on the side of justice! You don't let murderers run free! You don't, you, ha, ha, you can't! I was your rival! Your equal! I surpassed you! You were willing to make me the new L! You ha, ha, you can't, ha, you can't think that you can throw a mind like mine away! She's wasting, she's destroying the only friend you ever had!"

"Light. I may not be experienced with having friends. But I am pretty sure they don't secretly scheme to kill one another and usurp everything they have made." He tried to wave a hand dismissively and instantly regretted taking it off of his chest. "Ahh, ow... If they did? I don't think our friendship was ever strong enough to convince me to stand between you and her."

Light looked back up to the barrel of my gun. And he threw his head back and screamed. 

"I'M KIRA! THE GOD OF THE NEW WORLD! I KNOW YOU PEOPLE CAN HEAR ME UP THERE! I KNOW YOU CAN SEE ME! SHE'S, SHE'S TRYING TO MURDER THE GOD OF THE NEW WORLD, DON'T YOU GET IT? HELP! HELP! IF YOU, IF YOU COME AT HER, SHE CAN'T FIGHT ALL OF YOU OFF! SHOW YOUR DEVOTION, SHOW HOW MUCH YOU BELIEVE IN THE NEW WORLD! YOU'LL BE, YOU'LL BE MARTYRS OF JUSTICE IF YOU HELP ME GET FREE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SOMEONE HELP ME!"

Nothing. No response. No tide of zealous Kira advocates, sacrificing themselves for the greater good. No sound but the babbling of fountain water splashing over his clothing and his ragged, panicked breath. Anyone who loved Kira here was too much of a coward to step up. Everyone else had too much sense.

"Ryuk! Ryuk! I know you have to be here!" he gasped. "I have, I have two apples here for you if you help me escape! Matsuda's still vulnerable! He could stop them! The other customers could stop them!"

Ryuk stopped leering from afar and slapped Light in the face with his own personal //DEATH NOTE//. "Ha! You had a good run, Light old buddy, but it doesn't look like anyone's willing to die to extend your life! Looks like it's the end of the line for you! Sure gave me a thrilling ending to the story, didn't you?" Matsuda was clearly confused, the only one who couldn't see Ryuk. He backed off to keep his options open.

Light turned away from the grinning god of death. And at last he looked me in the eyes. 

"Beg."

"You don't have to do this," he said, as evenly as he could. "You won, okay? Maybe, ah, maybe you even, you, you proved you beat me, okay? You don't need to kill me. That isn't what justice is. You can, you can show mercy."

At no point in this entire spiel had I ever heard him express the slightest remorse. My face didn't so much as twitch.

"Well FUCK YOU!" he bellowed. "You're worse than me, you know that!? Your husband was going to stop me from protecting people! Innocent people were going to DIE because of him! YOU were going to let innocents get murdered because you were just too upset about him to see the big picture! Huh? Huh? You think you get to take me out for hurting you, but I don't get to defend myself? Hypocrite! Hypocrite!" He was a centimeter away from totally breaking down into gales of nervous laughter. "What gave you the right? If I'm such a monster, how come you, how come you get to decide if everybody gets to live or die? How are you not just as bad as me? Huh? Answer me! You can't, can you?"

"Everybody. Huh." I mulled it over. "Everybody." I took a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. I started slowly shaking my head. "Everybody..." He was right. I did not have the right to decide if everybody lives or dies. "Uh. Hmmm. Ah." Was it right? What made me different?

"Everybody. Uh..." Passing judgment on everyone was wrong. Nobody has that right. No single person can be Justice. "Decide. Uh... Decide, and, and, everybody." He couldn't stop laughing, but his eyes were locked on me, clearly awaiting every aphasic stammer. His face was starting to light up with hope.

Light was right about one thing. If I decided I had the right to decide everyone's fates because I could escape consequences for it, I would be just as bad as him. I'd be everything I fought against.

"Decide. Ah... and, and, everybody." I lowered my gun arm. I slowly shook my head, so I could know I meant it. "Everybody... uh, uhhhh..." 

Light erupted in another gale of frantic, nervous laughter. "Ri-right, good! You know I'm right! We're all going, going, we're going to do the right thing and--"

And then I spat "You." I pulled my hand back up. He started to raise his hands in protest. I pulled the trigger.

BLAM!

The bullet went into his left eye socket and left an exit wound the size of a baseball that sprayed brain matter and skull fragments all over the central pillar of the fountain. Blood spattered on all four of the humans here. The water instantly soaked deep crimson. He fell forward, and his ventilated skull began to pour a lake of blood onto the crown logo of the Hotel Palace Shibuya.

I didn't have the right to decide if everyone lived or died. That is the provenance of Justice. That's someone who thinks they are God. He murdered my fiance and robbed me of language, and that meant I had the right to decide if HE lived or died. I can't stop him from hurting me. I can't stop him from maiming me, taking the people I love, destroying my life, violating my identity. But by God can I ever make him pay for the privilege.

It was over. Kira was dead. My face was sprayed in his blood. Matsuda and Ryuzaki looked horrified. Were they unconvinced I would really do it? Everyone who had been silently watching above us started screaming in terror. I was elated. He was dead. He was dead! Kira was dead! Raye was avenged! Everyone else he ever killed was avenged! The would-be God of the New World, gone! Never, never to slay again!

We won! We really won! We accounted for every page and had custody of every active Death Note! I looked around to everyone. I wanted to cheer. Misa jumped at me, hugged me as tight as she could, and kissed me. I saved her too. I got my revenge, I saved the girl, we saved the entire God damn world!

"I'd like to remind you that I was shot," Ryuzaki said, "and even assuming the phone jamming was successful, we have maybe five minutes to get out of here before all of us get arrested for murder."

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

They brought a truck they were going to use to escort Misa and I to the headquarters. And they did just that. It was... pretty awkward. 

But the previous plan was to bring us straitjacketed to holding cells.

Instead of alone with Ryuzaki.

Where we were.

"Why in God's name aren't I in surgery yet?" he moaned from his wheelchair. Watari had hooked him up with painkillers on IV, but they were either weak or didn't kick in yet.

"I had to have a, a a a margin of error!" Misa protested. "I didn't, I didn't know if there was going to be, like, a day-long hostage situation that kept you from, from getting out. Then you'd die! And I didn't know, like, if I could just write down that your doctor did a DCA procedure for no reason, like, is that plausible, so I had to give you a reason to get the surgery!" She couldn't meet his gaze, though. "I'm... I'm sorry." I consoled her as best I could. She made the right call, but she already knew why, so there wasn't much else I could say, I could only push things along.

"Join. Ah, and, and, uh, done," I stammered.

"Right! Right, right, the investigation. We would like to officially rejoin the investigation, please." Misa said.

He looked at us. And then at Ryuk. "Is the entity joining us as well?"

Ryuk laughed. "Sure! I won't take orders, but I'd like a badge."

"Th-that's Ryuk," she said. She was distracted, preoccupied. "He's a, a shinigami. They come from another world, like, another dimension. They use the notebook. Uh. To kill humans. They have a bunch of rules for it too. They're, I guess like aliens?" Misa was racking her brain at this point, searching for every word she could. "Ryuk got an extra notebook and dropped it in the human world to, to to see what would happen. And Light got it. He was, he was following Light around the whole time."

"Until Light killed himself!" Ryuk helpfully added. "I did not know he was going to do that."

"Y-yeah. But until then," Misa stammered. "He's a death alien so he doesn't follow the same rules. But there are a lot of rules he follows with the notebook. He could, maybe, he might help us figure out how it works."

"Hmm..." He pulled out that metal booklet again and theatrically licked a finger to turn a page. "I can't give you the rules... Maybe I can help you learn them on your own. That seems like it could be very interesting!"

Ryuzaki narrowed his eyes. Clearly, thinking of how often Ryuk must have loomed over his shoulder when we all met. When he thought Light was befriending him.

"Uh, uh, lemme think, uh," Misa stumbled, "They, they like apples... They kill people with the Death Note to sustain their lives... tied, like, tied together with the Death Note to exist and always need one... We can't be mad at them for it because they're aliens. I, uh, uh, Ryuk? Is there anything I'm missing? I don't want to leave anything out." Ryuk shrugged noncommittally.

Ryuzaki squinted. "I'll need to run a background check before you can join the investigation." Ryuk grinned at that.

"Right! Investigation. If we rejoin it, we, can, we can tell you it's finished. We, ah, we took care of the Egawas and Light." She opened up the bag of supplies that had turned into a bag of evidence. "There was, uh, I gave you the spine of the Egawa Death Note. There was a bunch of wet pages, which are in the plastic bag marked //EGAWA 1//, and, we also got six sheets he was supposed to hide, one from his, from his pocket, two he was copying, and one from his smoke detector we shredded. That, we already closed the bag, uh, so, that's //EGAWA 2// here." Deep breath. Focus. "And Rem's is just in //REM//. I took all the pages with writing out of the one I used and put them... uh... this is the jerky... box of bullets... Here. And this is the book." She held out the notebook with //ARVC-5// on the cover, bound closed with rubber bands. "Second Kira's notebook." She pointedly did not hand it to him.

"Do?" I asked. "Do, and, uh, and book?"

"Yeah. That's the question," she said for me. "What are you going to do with these things?" Ryuk threaded his fingers together and leaned in, staring at us with such interest.

"Hmm." I think the opportunity to mull something over was more powerful than the pain he was feeling. "We need to test the material and thus its capabilities. Our number one priority is neutralizing it as much as we can." Ryuk chortled at that. "I can get a list of terminally ill patients who have petitioned for assisted suicide just like I did with Lind L. Tailor. I imagine that since you are not idiots, you are not going to allow me to have that notebook unsupervised. As you have had ample opportunity to use it and not done so, I would judge it safe with you for the time being." He tried to steeple his fingers and lean forward, and was reminded of the wound in his chest. "Hhhhh! Aaah! No television or computer access. No telling... anyone outside that we're done, until we all complete a lengthy debriefing. I don't know if it is safe to destroy these objects. I know we cannot risk my employers getting their hands on them. If necessary I'll encase them in Lucite like baseball cards."

I had no idea who his employers were. They had something to do with the 'let's make a gun the law can't touch' people, I think. So yeah, not good to let it slip into their hands. Ryuzaki wasn't mentioning any of the obvious other risk factors. He knew I knew what a catastrophe this would be in the hands of terrorists, some college Communist revolutionary, or even worse the hands of the CIA. He wasn't saying it. He was looking at Ryuk. We all were. Ryuk would have thought it very interesting to hear what groups of humans would do the most damage with the notebook.

I slowly nodded to Ryuzaki. His priorities were in the right place. Or he was lying. But if he was, it was a lousy position to do it in.

"Right!" said Misa, still preoccupied. She had been ever since her memory returned, but now it was even worse. "You're not going to try and use them. So, uh, I can say the investigation isn't over. There's, there's someone else you have to take care of. The Second Kira has to die too."

What? What? No! This, she couldn't! Words fled from me and I grabbed her and I squeezed her and I hoped to God my touch would let her know how much she meant, how proud I was of her, how much she had changed. How much she deserved to live.

"No!" She squealed in realization. "No, no, no, no, no. I, uh, not like that. I meant... do the memory thing again." She grinned sheepishly and held up some normal paper labelled //MISA MEMORY PLAN//. "I, uh, I had to write it down because halfway through I would forget I was doing it. I put it on the first page of my notebook, too. It's a big complicated thing where I have to GET all the Notes, and, and and then I have to LOSE all the notes, and and someone ELSE has to get the one with my, with the memories I need, and we have to ensure I never touch the OTHER one with my bad memories..."

Oh. That made sense. And she was clearly distraught over her memories. But why so secretive?

"I taped, ah, a full confession of everything I know and everything I did, right before I made the plan," she said, rummaging again. "I took out every page that had writing on it and put them... somewhere... they were... Here, //SECOND KIRA//. We'll trade this book away afterwards so it can't give me my memories back, so I got all the evidence out. You need to laminate those. The, uh, the pages, not the tapes, so I can't touch them. Okay?" She handed the bound notebook to Ryuzaki. "D-double, uh, double-check my plan and make sure the rest of it's blank. I don't, ah, I, I don't want to make a mistake. But I, I can't live with these memories either. Knowing, knowing she existed is one thing. This is different."

Ryuzaki looked the first page over. Cursorily flipped through the rest. And put the rubber bands back on. "I would prefer to interrogate you with your memories. There could be things you forgot. But as you are clearly going to kill yourself if you retain them for much longer, you have my permission to carry out your plan."

Misa was up to something. 'Making mistakes' was something heavier to her than simple errors. She needed Ryuzaki to make sure her plan wasn't evil. Something the Second Kira was doing from inside her.

She was hiding it from me. If it was something the Second Kira wanted, then now was way too late to be betraying me. So if it was about me I couldn't know... but she didn't conceal it from me either. Didn't bother to not use a telling phrase. It wasn't about me. It was about Ryuk. 

"I'm going to go get some actual morphine," Ryuzaki shuddered as he grabbed the control of his wheelchair, "and replace this bag of what I can only assume is children's-strength placebo. Give me thirty seconds to activate the recording suite in this debriefing room; I would like as many spectrums of camera as possible to be looking at you when you lose and regain your memory." And he wheeled out of the room. Misa was going to do something to Ryuk. I had no idea what. I could only follow her lead.

The lights came on stronger, and indeed there were a bunch of cameras behind glass, mounted to the ceiling. Ryuzaki even left the door open a crack so he couldn't drop the panic door on us. Misa got out the two notebooks, and the bracelet, and shooed me some distance away. "Okay, this is complicated," she said again, "And, and part of it I will forget what I'm doing, so don't let me, don't let me grab the book off the floor or we'll have to start all over. Let me know if you, you can't follow it."

Really playing up how complicated the plot was. She had to have a reason to ask Ryuzaki if what she was doing was okay... But she knew misdirection. The plan wasn't the big thing, Ryuk should be looking at the plan. She had something else going on. Follow her lead.

Raye's extended family had a 'white elephant gift exchange'. where everyone wrapped a present and threw it in the center, and in turn each person could open a gift from the center, or steal a gift from another family member. You couldn't steal a gift that had just been stolen from you, nor a gift that had been in someone's hands three times, so they had to make alliances, form complicated chains and loops and slide the same gift back and forth to keep it in their hands. The rule of "no cahootsin'" was frequently shouted but not particularly honored. I got a blender and some rum, for daiquiris.

The Death Notes passed around like the gift exchange. I had to give //ARVC-5// up to Misa, which involved inventing a hand signal. Then Misa had to give all of them up while //ARVC-5// was on the floor outside of arm's reach and she was sitting on her hands, so she wouldn't accidentally touch one while she didn't remember what she was doing. Then I had to be the next one to touch the bracelet and Rem's blank notebook, so I would own them and Misa had no connection. Then, Misa had to touch the bracelet and Rem's notebook to get her memories back, but not own them, so she wouldn't risk the memories if the notebooks were lost. Then I had to DROP Rem's notebook and give IT up so Ryuk could take it and drop it again and I took it BACK and now IT would grant the ability to see him and not just //ARVC-5//. I did not expect altering memories with relics of death to be such a chore. Ryuk was etching in the back of his rulebook about the process. I had no idea what was coming but I made sure, every time Ryuk looked to get bored, he was looking at me, thinking of a way to subtly insult me. This was boring and I was bored. The only things that weren't boring were confusing. I wasn't tense. I wasn't waiting for another shoe. 

"Okay. Okay. I'm okay." Misa said after a few breaths. Getting her memories back this time just seemed like a jolt of static electricity. They weren't gone very long. "I remember... I remember being abducted a stalker to put me in a dungeon, even, even though that isn't true. But I remember walking into the freezer to die of hypothermia... and why I lost my fingers. That's what happened, right? It is? That's it! The Second Kira is gone!" She didn't run over to me to hug me. She stayed her distance. "Now, Ryuk, you pick up the one on the floor... and you own both of them... and then you drop the one you just had before that on the floor into the human world to give it up," she said, summarizing. "So now I can't touch //ARVC-5// by accident. And then we're done, and you can have the last two apples."

"Ah! Clever," Ryuk said. "I can't trade with humans, but this isn't a trade, is it? Another fun little technicality." Sure enough, he grabbed the notebook from the floor, held the two together, and dropped his personal volume to the ground, abandoned to the human world.

Misa had one hand in her coat pocket. I thought I saw her wrist moving slightly. Fumbling with something.

Of course. Batteries. If she was waiting for an exact moment with a battery-powered device, she needed the batteries removed to avoid premature detonation.

Ryuk slipped a finger into the rubber band closing his new personal notebook. I had to get his attention. I grunted at him. "Ryuk! Ryuk. Ryuk, and, and, uh... ah... Ryuk?"

He stopped. Stared at me with a slight mocking air. "Hmmm? You know, I can't understand you. Maybe you could act it out." He smiled cruelly, but he stopped fiddling with the rubber bands.

"It's okay!" Misa said. "It's fine." She wasn't fiddling in her pocket any more. "He can have the apples. We can work everything else out later." She looked up at me. "I can... I can still see your name. There wasn't anyone to give the eyes back to. But I'm fine. Ryuk can help us figure out how to deal with that, right?" She picked both apples out of her purse. She rolled them down the table to Ryuk.

I took a step back. He was looking at the apples. Another step. Misa's hand went right back into her pocket. She needed to be outside of his leash range. Needed to be far enough away he couldn't lunge at her.

Ryuk snatched an apple from the table with a coo of satisfaction. In that moment, we knew, he was tangible. The physical world, the realm of human beings, could interact with him.

Misa's arm tensed up in her pocket. Like she was mashing a button very, very hard.

Ryuk's eyes bulged even wider. I kicked his previous notebook along the floor into the corner. Outside of range. 

"Oh my." Ryuk said. Smoke billowed from his wings. From his mouth.

Flash paper. From the magic shop. Good for starting fires remotely. Misa needed to be alone because she needed to put the flash paper and igniter in the Death Note. She needed nobody to listen to her tape, because they'd hear her setting up the hardware. She needed to put rubber bands on the notebook so nobody would see inside and nothing would slip out. She had the detonator in her coat pocket this entire time. She needed to hit the button when she knew Ryuk could interact with the world -- when he was touching an apple. The plan wasn't that complex, but she did every step to keep it secret. And then, because she didn't trust herself but Ryuk would read over my shoulder, she ran it past Ryuzaki to make sure she wasn't evil.

The shinigami exist for the Note, not the other way around. They must have one. The Note can exist without them, not the other way around. It is tied to them. Losing it is bad. Destroying it? Burning it up while it was the only one tied to them? Much worse.

I couldn't tell if Ryuk was enraged or impressed. His eyes were starting to glow. Bluish flames licked at his ankles. "Ha. Very clever." He was making the same conclusions I was. "How long did you plan this?"

"As... not long after I remembered who you are, I think," Misa said. She couldn't meet his gaze. "You did this for fun. You'd do it again. You're never going to be sorry and there's only one way to make you stop."

"I'm not." He wheezed. Black smoke come out. "You had to kill me, didn't you? That makes three shinigami you've murdered, doesn't it? You are quite the killer."

"No." I told him. Flame was building up inside of him, and he seemed totally undisturbed. "No, uh. Ah. One."

"Right. Of course." He was talking to Misa but fixated on me. I had to be ready for movement. I had no idea what his tell would be, if he went after me. "Gelus and Rem chose to die. I'm the only one you murdered." Tongues of blue flame were dancing up in the back of his awful, jagged maw. "Rem, you know, she had a thing. She wondered if humans had surpassed shinigami."

His eyes were all flame now. The black smoke was filling the room. I couldn't move him anywhere, I was his tether point. "You two, I think you've surpassed Kira. The ultimate killers! It was a lovely ride! More fun following this notebook then I've had in fifty years!" He threw his head back and chortled and blue cinders sprayed out of him. "Games in games! Wheels in wheels! Killing to stop killing to stop killing to stop killing! It all ended with three notebooks locked down and three shinigami dead and a world in terror! I tore up the world, baby! Maybe nobody will ever dare to try what I did again!"

And then in an instant he was right in my face, his smoldering eyes filling my vision. "Or maybe you just pissed the Old Man off and he'll want his revenge! Hahahahaha!"

He spun in an great, awkward circle, laughing. Mirthful? I don't know. Maybe he was happy to have been fooled, to find a way a shinigami could be murdered and not just commit suicide. Maybe he was happy to be done with a dreadful existence he didn't have the courage to end. Or he was just elated at all the fun he'd had until now. Or he just didn't know how to react to what was happening to him. And then he stopped. He didn't seem to try to take another notebook, or to take his out and put out the flame. He stared wall-eyed. One eye on Misa, one on me. Motionless. 

Misa and I watched the fire consume him. More and more black smoke filled the room. We said nothing. Nothing needed to be said. Now the case would be closed. Bearing witness to his passing would be the most respect we gave him. Misa threw away the memories of the Second Kira, knowing she would do this. This was never leaving my memories, I doubt it would hers. But we did it. We stopped the monster and the creature that made him. No. We stopped the monster. Misa stopped this thing. 

At last, it was done. He was a pile of oily black ashes. Misa jabbed it with a pen to make sure nothing would jump out, then she scooped some of it into another water bottle. "Yeah. He's... It's dead." 

I helped her with her task. The remains didn't have the notebook like Rem's did, since it had burned away. But there was Ryuk's metal reference book, as well as his pen that had an etching point on the back, and some coins. Looked modern. Ryuzaki would want these. We had plenty of evidence bags.

Misa sighed wearily. I picked up her chin. Looked in her eyes. I held her. I couldn't have done this without her. Because of how much she had grown as a person. People were safe because of her. She was a hero. And all I could say was. "Pride. Pride, ah, pride."

And she smiled weakly. "Yeah, I know... you're proud of me... I'm just, I was a Kira, SHE was a Kira I mean, I had to do so much, I have to do so much to, to make up for it..." She started teetering forward, and I caught her. "And I'm just so god damn tiiiiired. I need a nap. Do you need a nap?" 

I could use one.

### 
    
    
    * R U L E S *

**Response** : Gola, please stop submitting requests for changes and additions to the rules of the Death Note. Rules are not derived from observed experiences or data and no authorization exists to alter or expand them at this time.

 **X-9a**. In the end, all humans will still die without the Death Note. 

**X-9b**. The existence of gods of death benefits no one, and serves no purpose.

**X-9c**. Gods of death do not know where they came from.

**X-9d**. Gods of death came from somewhere.


	10. Epilogue - Decision

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

If I had any nightmares last night, well, I didn't remember them. Hell, if I had any dreams last night, I didn't remember them. I woke up with a puddle of drool forming beneath my face, with my arms wrapped around Misa Amane, a blanket over our bodies. Her hand curled around my scarred arm. Eyes closed, sleeping peacefully. The clock said it was 9:27. We slept in. 

For a little bit I didn't wake her. I almost dipped back into sleep, and awoke again. But it was already late. I tapped Misa on the shoulder and I asked her "Mmm, honey, what do you want for breakfast?"

I mean, I tried. But I couldn't. What was I going to say? What word meant "breakfast," or "what"? I stammered uselessly. And I could barely hear myself at all. Why didn't I --

Right. I'm disabled. It's nearly impossible to talk. My one good ear was pressed into the pillow. I guess... I woke up next to someone, without a horrible lead weight bearing down on my shoulders. And I forgot. I forgot, for a second, what had been taken from me. All the awful parts just, they didn't feel real. Just for a second.

We had the bag with the Death Note supplies in bed between us so nobody would steal it. We were in Misa's windowless apartment with no TV or Internet service so we couldn't theoretically kill any new people. And the panic door was down to keep us secure. And keep the tower secure from us. Misa could see everyone's name and how long they had to live. Ryuzaki was going to have dangerous heart surgery at noon and if he didn't survive we wouldn't either. If we did, we'd be subject to a battery of tests and debriefing about what we'd done in the Kira investigation, and not in the Kira investigation. I shot a man in the head last night and then I watched a god of death burn to death and none of us did anything about it.

But it was done. We won. Kira was gone. Light Yagami was dead. Every scrap of Death Note paper he had available was accounted for. Isamu Egawa was dead. Nabiki Egawa was captured. The man they raped into obedience was captured and ready to be provided with a reversible suicide method, to be restored as best we could. Ryuk the shinigami who started all of this for fun was dead. We had what looked like a Death Note reference book from him that would be invaluable to understanding its power. The Second Kira had been overcome by who Misa had made herself into, and banished from the world. I lived in a world without Kira, and I woke up, I woke up for a second in a world that never had him.

We won.

It was over.

...I was hungry.

I still didn't have a hearing aid to pull off the nightstand and dig into my ear; I ditched it when I went rogue because it could be used to track me. Gonna have to get another one, without the bells and whistles. I did have a stack of notecards and a pen. I gently roused Misa to consciousness; I knew she'd go back to sleep soon, she would probably need 16 hours of sleep a day for a while to recover from the whole "dying of hypothermia and then being treated with mostly improvised materials instead of a hospital" thing. I gingerly poked her on the shoulder. "Eat?"

"Mmh? Mmm, yeah, breakfast would be nice," she mumbled. "A big American breakfast. With the... hyaaaaaaaammmm... the sausages wrapped in the bacon... inside of an egg. Energy. Energy egg." I showed her my notecard. A circle, and another circle with a grid drawn on it, and two clashing arrows between them. She squinted as her groggy brain tried to work out the detritus of my damaged brain. "Uhhh... Oh. Waffles." she finally said, before turning over and going back to sleep. 

Right. I saw a waffle iron, I hoped there was pancake mix here. Nobody was in the kitchen area, but I entered with my gun drawn anyway. Can't be too careful. I believed Ryuzaki didn't want to use the Note to ill ends, but for all I know there were people who weren't so ethical who already knew about it. But nobody was here, and nobody was in the sitting room or bathroom. Breakfast. Gotta make breakfast. 

Someone had kept my kitchenette stocked every week I was here, even though I only used the instant, frozen food. Looked like they had done the same for Misa, and nobody emptied the fridge out of spite. I had to make an actual breakfast for two people. A big American farmhouse breakfast, not just rice or instant miso or a toaster strudel that I microwaved instead. 

I did check every package for poison. Fill half the sink with water, submerge to see if bubbles came out of a puncture. Can't be too careful.

Where would I be in a world without Kira? I wouldn't be making breakfast right now, Raye would be at work. I'd have made it for him earlier. I'd be a doting, supportive housewife, because we'd have been married. I'd have the implant dug out of my arm and I'd probably be pregnant with his child, though not showing yet. With no kid to take care of I'd probably be watching a lot of TV. Or talking on the phone. Fluently.

Rice in the rice steamer, pour in water to the line. No gravy to be found, but biscuits just pop out of the tube onto the cookie sheet. Bacon's thankfully the microwave kind. Pancake mix has directions on it. More milk. More egg. Boil the water for the tea. 

Maybe I wouldn't be a housewife. Maybe I would have got cold feet. Stood him up at the altar. Or got mad at him and called it off. Maybe "a woman's place is in the home" would stop being a tender and supportive message about having a place to be cherished that wasn't degrading like the FBI, and start being demeaning. Or it would be something else. We hadn't had a major fight yet, so it could have been about anything, and it could have been nasty. I don't think he would have broken it off with me. I wouldn't want to break it off with him. But maybe I couldn't help myself. I was unreliable. I quit when it got hard.

Okay, that's not how this waffle maker works. I had two incinerated waffle briquettes I had to write off as a learning cost. Mix together the eggs with a bit of milk, and salt so the yolk will break up. Like Mrs. Pember showed me. Do we have sausage patties? No, we have sausage links, microwave or griddle. Griddle. Crumble bacon into the omelet as it forms. Ugh, I need to bring down the TTY and call Mom and Dad, they're probably out of their minds right now.

That's the part that's gnawing at me now. I thought I could not live without him, that he was my world. But when I just woke up, when I was three-quarters asleep and forgot all the bad things that happened to me... I was not surprised at all by Misa Amane in my bed. That felt natural. It felt right. I didn't even panic at the scars on my arm, because she loved them, thought they were beautiful and powerful. So, maybe I'd have a tranquil life of domestic bliss if Kira hadn't happened. Or maybe I would have broken promises and loneliness. But Kira had happened. And at least now... 

Breakfast. Big, hearty American breakfast, enough calories to run all the way to Fort Worth and back. Cooked by a supportive domestic. Never got the hang of flipping omelets, so put a plate over the frying pan, flip the whole mess over, slide the omelet from the plate back to the pan. Sprinkle the shredded cheese on top. Biscuits are done, let them cool. Waffles are crispy but edible. Pancake syrup goes in the microwave to get it nice and smooth. 

They say that before you set out for revenge, you should first dig two graves. One for your victim, one for yourself. But I felt like... maybe for the first time, I wasn't in my grave. So where was I? For the first time this year I both felt like someone who could accomplish a goal, and didn't have one. 

Break up some sausage into Omelet 2, hope that's close to what Misa wanted. Waffles three and four, come faster because the iron is heated up. Getting the hang of this now. Cut the biscuits so jam can be applied. Rice is finally ready, dump it into a couple of bowls. Boiling water over the tea bags, let that steep while I'm moving plates. Keep every plate spinning, just enough time between each thing to do the next thing. Capoeira cooking is a breakfast art where you never stop moving. Put it all on Misa's totally unused dinette set? No. Lay it on the kotatsu, by the couch. Where we had cheesecake. Was that a date? Or have we not had a first date? Keep moving. Don't drop the plates. Get the silverware.

Misa emerged in her Dia de los Muertos pajamas with the bag -- not to be let out of our presence -- and an impressive case of bed hair. Right before I was going to get her. "Mmm, that smells delicious," she moaned with her eyes still totally shut. "I am super hungry, too." I had to gently guide her, keep her from staggering and knocking something over. Chuck the bag under the kotatsu. Sit down. Deeeeep breath. "Mmmmmm..." she purred, and finally opened her eyes. "I didn't know I had this much food in here. I always had my meals prepared by Elena, the--" Yaaawn. "--the nutritionist. Think Watari asked her for meal plans when I needed to get my weight back."

Misa folded her hands and politely said "Itadakimasu!" and I graciously nodded. The meal wasn't masterfully made, but I think I did all right for myself. Waffles, rice, omelet, bacon, sausage, biscuits. Tea and orange juice. You could put a rock on there and it would be part of this complete breakfast. She drenched her waffles in syrup. Grabbed her knife and fork to dig in -- immediately, she dropped her knife. "Whoops! I'll get that!" she said when she grabbed it off the kotatsu's blanket.

She wasn't wearing a glove. I could see the stumps on her left hand where her pinky and ring fingers used to be. Still stitched over with black thread.

"Yeah, they wanted to attach prosthetic fingers," she said when she saw when I was staring at, and as she rubbed her knife clean on her pajama shirt. "But it's not like we had any time to get them molded and fitted. We can go back and get some when we get you a new hearing aid." A pause. "If Ryuzaki lets us, I guess," she said around a chunk of waffle. She chewed in silence. So did I. It was good, my waffle was fluffy. Ryuzaki might not let us leave. He might not live. A DCA procedure always had risks. The Death Note would stop paying attention to ensure his condition was good once his heart stopped.

Then, around another mouthful, she spoke again. "Okay. This is gonna sound weird, right? But... I kind of liked that thing, where you gave me a heated IV to fix my hypothermia. And the doctors." I arched my eyebrow at this. It did, indeed, sound weird. "It's kind of like... Did you ever microwave your socks in the winter?"

I did not, but the mental image made me giggle. And Misa laughed along with me, even as she mimed bopping me on the arm. "Quit it! That's a perfectly normal thing to do! People love socks fresh out of the dryer, right? I want warm socks more often than I need to do a load of socks!"

"Mmmph," I mumbled, and it was because of the maple-drenched waffle in my mouth and not my brain damage. "Mmmm... Clothes."

"Well you can't put your other clothes in the microwave, come on," she said. She crammed some omelet in her cheek this time, for variety, and pointed with her fork for emphasis. "For one, can't put your underwear in there, other people use that. For two, it's got, mmmmmph, every microwave's got bits of exploded squid ball and pasta sauce all over it, so your shirt's big enough it scrapes all over and gets messy."

I waved my fork back at her, sausage flopping from it, and it kept flopping as I searched for my word. "Uhhhh... Wash! Wash, and, and. And, uh, and dry. Dry?"

"Of course!" she said, and she theatrically slapped her forehead. "You have to wash the shirt when it comes out of the microwave, and then you put it in the dryer, and it's warm again! It's the perfect system!" Another forkful of laden omelet into her mouth. "You just cracked the code, Naomi. This is big. Winter's days are numbered."

I shoved the entire sausage into my mouth. It was spiced, but not spicy. And fatty. Oh so wonderfully fatty. "Mmmm... Ah. Ninety."

"Exactly!" She spread the jam on the biscuit, had to leave it on the plate instead of holding it with her three-fingered hand. "We got it down to ninety so far, but with this, we'll take it down to sixty-five no problem! Mmmph, is this raspberry, or blackberry? I can never tell."

It was blackberry, so I held up two fingers. "Second one. Gotcha."

And then I smiled at her. I tried to say something else. All I could do was stammer. "Ah... uh..."

And she smiled back. "I love you too."

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

"Matsuda. Uh, I'm a police investigator, and I posed as Misa Amane's manager. Ryuzaki also made me get coffee a few times. I learned how to work the print shop pretty well. Oh, I got us into the Yotsuba building to stop them from finding the bugs, right?"

"I'm Aizawa. Local whipping boy."

"Merrie Kenwood, designation 'Wedy', serial number W-8445. I provide electronic security, surveillance, and infiltration when necessary to L's investigations. In this case I created surveillance profiles for the homes of Soichiro Yagami and Koreyoshi Kitamura via fax, then personally infiltrated and bugged three office buildings owned by Yotsuba, one of which led to the discovery of the Yotsuba Prosperity Council. My surveillance of Eba Watsuji was incomplete and, as it happened, unnecessary."

"My name is Misa Amane. I was an actress and model before the investigation, and I released a CD but I wasn't really a singer. Then, I was, SHE was the Second Kira, and she got arrested and imprisoned for that. I lost those memories of being Kira, so, so I stopped being her and started being me, and Naomi questioned me for a while, but she got me out. And when I got out, I became an investigator. I posed as Yotsuba's spokesmodel to find their Kira. And I was Naomi's interpreter if that counts as a role. But after a while we went rogue. Is, like, is 'rogue investigator' an official job or does it not count because we weren't technically in the investigation?"

"Con man, code name Aiber. I get into people's trust so L can mess with them. This time I posed as Geraldo Coil to infiltrate the Yotsuba Prosperity Council under the guise of finding the Second Kira. Oh, and this time I was also a guard, and we learned why I don't do that."

"Kanzou Mogi. I provided surveillance and groundwork most of the time. Low-level analysis of paperwork, pulling LUDs, things of that nature. I was assigned to surveil Light Yagami before the headquarters was constructed, but it was never meant to be a 24-hour tail, and I was often sent on other business. "

"Naomi Misora. Uh. Uhhhh.... Hm. Misora. Misora. Misora, and... And, uh, and, uh... Question. Question. Ah. Nnnnn... Question?"

"I am Watari. I serve as handler for master Ryuzaki as well as providing marksman support and helicopter piloting. I took care of most day-to-day tasks in running the investigation, at master Ryuzaki's order."

"I'm Soichiro Yagami. I was a detective captain. I don't think I provided anything of value to the investigation."

### 
    
    
    * M I S A *

"It's nice that you came to visit me," Ryuzaki, aka //LESLIE TAYLOR LAWLIET -8252//, deadpanned. He'd had a couple days to recuperate, so it was safe to visit him and talk to him and stuff. He was in a hospital gown, lying in a hospital bed, right next to his regular one. Watari stood next to him. "You shouldn't have. By which I mean you shouldn't have done most of the things you did. Shooting me in the chest so I would die on the operating table was the least objectionable. You changed the content of your message to the Yotsuba Prosperity Council so that Kira would respond differently, and you did not tell me. Then, you undermined the investigation at every turn, going out on your own instead of consulting me for the course of action, endangering yourselves and the mission as well as innocent lives. Potentially valuable sources of information are dead. "

"Hey!" I protested. I kind of wiggled in my own wheelchair, the one I kept off my feet in, to try and look more disapproving since I couldn't lean over him. "Light was all over you and he had some kind of evil plan cooking. We had to be, like, decisive, and do something he couldn't possibly have planned for! Did I get mad at you for abducting her and then tying me up for a month? And not having any plan to let me out? And not even letting me have a radio to listen to until someone twisted your arm? No! I mean, I was mad at the time, but not any more, because I know she deserved it." I mean, yeah, that was, it was kind of what the situation needed...

"You're a little mad," he deadpanned.

"...Yeah, I'm a little mad," I mumbled. 

Naomi pitched in. "Nnnnn... danger. Danger. And, uh, and believe."

Great, let's get back to the topic of Ryuzaki being totally wrong instead of middle wrong! "Yeah! You didn't believe us anyway. I kept telling you Light was Kira and you put him in charge."

"Miss Misora." His big, sunken eyes were fixed on her. "Was it your idea to go rogue and undermine the investigation? Or did Miss Amane talk you into it?"

She stared him down right back. "I." She was taking responsibility, even though it was half and half. I was the one who said we needed to do all that jumping through hoops to try and give Light a chance. She mostly came up with the plan of how to do it, though? She definitely was the leader between us but I'd take the fall if she wanted.

"Hmph. Well." He closed his eyes and resettled himself in his bed. Only Watari was around to see him anyway. "That shows you how dangerous it is to get emotionally involved with the target of an investigation."

We let that one hang in the air for a bit. Until Naomi added "Sorry?"

He cracked one eye. "Are you apologizing to me?"

She shook her head. Watari cleared his throat. I sure wasn't apologizing either, don't need to be an interpreter to say that.

"Yes. Well. I suppose it's time I acknowledged my part in this," he said, squirmy. "I was hoping that I would only have to admit this once... and that doing so wasn't deepening my error. But I allowed my feelings to compromise the investigation. If you hadn't undermined it, Light would have undoubtedly found a way to kill me and take over as L, using my resources to aid his murder. So I suppose we both made -- OW!"

Watari flicked him in the ear and then went right back to looking like a butler. 

"Ughhhh... Thank you for saving my life, Misa and Naomi," Ryuzaki said, like he was eight years old again and forced to thank a substitute teacher. 

I did a chair-curtsy and Naomi bowed graciously. "You are welcome," I said, because we were going to be the bigger people and not rub it in what a total jerk he was and how dumb it was to make Kira the head of the task force trying to stop Kira.

"This doesn't mean your actions were moral, much less that I approve of them," he said, staring right through me. "You may have secured his confession and thus certainty of his guilt." I mean, we were certain beforehand -- his confession wasn't really why we did it, we wanted to know where his paper reserves were. "But Light Yagami was helpless and surrounded when Naomi executed him in cold blood." Okay, first off, he definitely deserved it. And second, I don't think that guy ever counted as helpless. Ryuzaki started chewing his thumb again. Wandered off into the weeds, lost in thought for a few seconds. "In retrospect... reviewing how things must have played out for Light, something leaps out at me. Light Yagami was astonishingly lucky. Events constantly seemed to break his way. Nets seemed to appear where he leapt, and power and vital information constantly fell into his lap. You would know; he had no idea you existed, there were two hours between when you left your hotel and when you could give your information to me and somehow he bumped into you in those hours. Fortune continually smiled on him and it was only due to his arrogance he ever wasted its gifts." Was Ryuzaki only just now figuring that out? Because even the Second Kira figured that one out, I think. I know I did.

He took a deep nose breath, looked off to the side. "I live in a world where shinigami exist. It would be irresponsible of me to conclude that it was impossible that Light Yagami was supernaturally lucky, because it doesn't fit a paradigm of the world I now know to be false. Perhaps he could not be safely imprisoned. Circumstances would conspire to set him free and deliver more power into his lap. One of my staff would discover a heretofore unknown undying loyalty to him. Or he would be visited by a god of thieves with an Escape Note. Perhaps killing him while he was pinned down was the only prudent course of action." And then he fixed Naomi with his gaze this time. "But that wasn't why you did it, was it?"

No. It wasn't. And I was one hundred percent behind her in that. He was a monster. He wrung people out and used them up and threw them away like paper towels. He was gonna do it to me, and definitely to Wedy and Aiber, and probably everyone else. And he stole Naomi's life. If whatever Ryuzaki thought was Justice said taking revenge on that guy was wrong, then forget Justice. Light talked enough about Justice already.

I don't even think that was what it was, though. Ryuzaki was big on defeating Kira, to prove himself as whatever. He didn't have such a commitment to Justice he wasn't willing to fabricate charges to lock up the Second Kira, so he knew when you had to cross the line, and you definitely had to cross the line on Light. I think he was kind of sore that someone else sealed the deal. Heck, maybe that means Naomi was gonna be L, and I was gonna be Watari! I mean, I'd be mad about that. 

If I was going to be Watari, I would have a lot to do. The Second Kira did a lot of evil. I felt like I wasn't thinking about how evil she was enough. Like I didn't feel guilty, or guilty enough, but knew I should be. I could say "Being with Naomi is bringing enough good into the world!" but that was, like, that was too convenient, wasn't it?

Anyway, not everything was perfect and great, so we were going to be the bigger people, and change the subject.

"Hey, so, uh," I said, "Ryuzaki! You have a negative number just like us. It's all numbers though, no letters. Looks like they stopped your heart //-8321//... somethings ago." Now that I didn't own any notebooks, I could see my negative hexadecimal number in the mirror, but Naomi's was gone. 

Ryuzaki grimaced. "Right. You have special eyes. You saw my name. They can see lifespans as well, I take it. I should have masked Watari."

"I won't tell anyone!" I protested. "I don't want to blab people's secret names either! I didn't say anything because it would be rude, too." Watari was //QUINCY MONTGOMERY WAMMY 5535183//. That number seemed a lot lower than everyone else, but, he was pretty old. I'd have to ask him if he wanted to know it when I got him alone. "I know you want to do like a bunch of tests on my eyes, and that's fine, just don't, like, poke them out. Maybe you can find laser glasses that block the wavelength of names, like that guy in the X-Men. And then I can't see the names and I can't see when people are gonna die and I don't like go crazy for seeing doom everywhere and then everyone's happy."

Ryuzaki grimaced. "Miss Amane. You are aware that the X-Men are not real, aren't you?" Now Naomi flicked him in his ear because I couldn't reach from the wheelchair. "Ow! Cut that out!"

"Of course I know the X-Men aren't real!" Why did he always have to mess with people like that, huh? "I'm a model, my job involves cameras, I know how filtering light works! So they still based that stuff on actual principles!"

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

//Anonymous Poster(OP) 1:08 AM  
IMG: Scarlet-Blood-River-Cast.JPG  
Post your favorite movie trivia, /tv/! I'll start:  
Due to the appearance of Misa Amane as Second High Schooler, "Scarlet Blood River" is the only film about a fictional serial killer that featured a real-life serial killer!//

//Anonymous Poster 1:08 AM  
IMG: mj-popcorn.GIF//

//Anonymous Poster 1:08 AM  
what the blue fuck are you on about, OP//

//Anonymous Poster(OP) 1:09 AM  
Misa Amane. The actress who couldn't shut up about how great Kira was. And then who vanished because of a 'car accident' right around when the Second Kira disappeared. And then who killed a guy on a radio show to declare herself Kira's Prophet. And said she was going to go meet Kira. And dropped off the face of the Earth.  
Misa Amane is the Second Kira. That makes her a serial killer and you an idiot.//

//Anonymous Poster 1:09 AM  
IMG: STOP.GIF  
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THERE IS AN ENTIRE CONTAINMENT BOARD FOR THIS HORSESHIT WHY CAN'T YOU KIRAFAGS STAY IN /L/ ALREADY//

//Anonymous Poster 1:09 AM  
IMG: lolwut.JPG  
>year of our lord 2007  
>still thinking kira and l are separate people  
>mfw//

//Anonymous Poster 1:10 AM  
>declare herself Kira's Prophet  
it was a tv show you absolute faggot and she didn't declare herself kira's prophet, someone else did  
she was working undercover for l to catch the real kira and kirafags fucked it up for lulz, they spiked the guy's meds and called in to blow her cover  
there was a whole thread on /l/ that had to get purged//

//Anonymous Poster 1:10 AM  
why the fuck do you think Kira has to be someone you recognize are you literally five years old  
Kira isn't a celebrity he's like twenty Chinese dudes in a basement//

//Anonymous Poster 1:10 AM  
Yeah, because that is definitely a thing that happens. Someone who everyone in Japan recognizes is a fucking great candidate to be an undercover agent. An anorexic model who is 75 pounds soaking wet can fight her way out of mobs of rape-crazed Kira cultists trying to grab her, no problem. Yeah. You figured it all out. Move over L, we got a new genius sleuth on the block.//

//Anonymous Poster 1:11 AM  
Kira isn't a serial killer. Kira has ideological motivations and wants to motivate action from political groups, so Kira is a terrorist.  
Movies with terrorists are nothing special. Saudi Arabia still makes movies.//

//Anonymous Poster 1:11 AM  
IMG: Misa-Amane-With-Security-On-Loca[...].JPG  
she has a fucking bodyguard idiot  
black jacket lady  
in the back//

//Anonymous Poster(OP) 1:11 AM  
hey guys what's going on in this thread  
>this model I masturbate to is sure important and if I say she's a super cool Kira then she'll give me a handy in a White Castle bathroom  
get a life fags//

//Anonymous Poster 1:12 AM  
LUL her bodyguard is a plant  
you can see that scar on her lip wandering all the fuck over her face every time they reapply her makeup  
MASTER OF DIS GUYS//

//THREAD LOCKED BY MODERATOR AT 1:12 AM//

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

"Check it out! Laser glasses, just like I said!" Misa proudly presented herself with her new John Lennon shades, and lenses that looked like the undersides of beer bottles. I could barely see her eyes through them. "I can't see your name at all! It's not the green color that blocks it, they said. It's that the glass is 5% iron. So they make everything, like, SUPER green, but the lab guys said there's something else they can add to it to de-greenify the glass and make it just a normal level of green tint, but still be 5% iron. I'm gonna ask for like twenty pairs in case I lose some or break some."

Misa had been a very good, very patient lab rat the past few days, testing exactly how her eye power worked. Spending all day looking at images of herself with filters and distortions and occlusions, reporting which ones did and didn't have her name floating above them. Pictures in black and white had it, but pictures taken in color that had a single color channel removed digitally did not. We were learning a lot.

Ryuzaki and I were poring over Ryuk's reference manual while she was tested. It looked like an alien language, but a reference Ryuk had etched in English in the back tipped Ryuzaki off that it was a substitution cipher, and he solved it like a newspaper Crypto-Quip. Sticking sticky notes with English and Japanese translations to each page as he went. Everything about the Death Note was bizzare like this. Materials analysis had come back: the Death Note paper fragments were both totally ordinary and unlike anything on Earth. Ordinary cellulose fibers, from pulped wood, like make up every piece of paper ever made. But the molecules were of left-handed chirality. Sinister orientation. Mirror images, unlike the right-handed sugars found in all organic compounds on Earth.

Now that we were working together we had a safe, that required Ryuzaki and either myself or Misa to simultaneously open, and all our Death Note shit went there. It gave us a bit more freedom to move. But then every single article of clothing we owned had to be inspected, and our rooms cleaned without us, to ensure we hadn't hidden any scraps. Ryuzaki wouldn't get fooled again.

"Hey! Ryuzaki!" she said. "I can't see your name any more, because of these stylish spectacles. Don't you think that's cool?"

"Glass gets its green color from iron oxide, not elemental iron," he mumbled. "Rust." 

"Well, I think it's cool, and Naomi thinks it's cool." I did. They looked a bit hippie-ish, but she made it work. "And you can... I don't know, you can make a Popemobile out of rust and put important people in it so they're immune to shinigami. You can figure something out."

"I can't believe it," he muttered. "It's a program. There's no other explanation. I've tried to think of something more... mythic. Supernatural. But this is a program. Look at it." He shoved a page at us, with translations at the bottom.

//35a. If a Death Note owner accidentally misspells a name four times, that person will be free from being killed by the Death Note. However, if they intentionally misspell the name four times, the Death Note owner will die.//

"It's functional, it has predictable results for predictable inputs, so it must be something like a program. A black box. The eyes have a digital output. But this... This is an error handling mechanism. And it's a hasty patch applied to the error handling mechanism to prevent an exploit."

I had indeed been thinking of it like a program. But I didn't put that together like Ryuzaki had. It wasn't just coded. It was coded at least a little clumsily. Misa looked to me for a cue, and I like to think I gave it to her. "Ohhh..." she said. "They didn't write that in the rules because they figured out that's how it worked. Someone decided it should work like that. So, uh... Who?"

"No idea," he said, chewing that nail again. "The rules have several redundancies, and gaping omissions. Anyone who reads 35a will have the same question: 'What if I intentionally make a third party spell a name wrong four times, but he doesn't know that?' No answer. They mention modern inventions like white-out. And the national family registry, very particular to Japan."

Misa didn't need to say it. She did not know that was a particularly Japanese thing, and it just now occurred to her other countries wouldn't have one. I didn't draw attention to it. 

"What's more, very few of the numbers involved are consistent," Ryuzaki continued. "If the numbers were derived from physical limitations, then the time limitation on how far ahead you could plan deaths would be the same as the time limitation on how far ahead you could write cause of death before filling in a name. Or something of that nature. But every span of time is chosen at random. Not only was this made, within the past one hundred and fifty years, it wasn't made that well. And we still have no way of squaring the circle between 2c and 67b."

//2c. The human who uses this note can neither go to Heaven nor Hell.//

//67b. There is nowhere that humans go to after they die.//

"Why write both rules? How does it make sense? 2c only makes sense with the existence of an afterlife taken as given. It is an exception that proves a rule; nobody writes 'no parking on Friday' if there is no parking on any day of the week. This book was not intended for humans to read, there's no reason to seed it with misinformation. But 67b refutes the assumption that 2c relies on. It was made with imperfect information, by contradictory authors, or..."

Misa squirmed in her seat. She knew what 2c was and what it meant about her. "'For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.'" she mumbled. "Mom said that was the only verse that mattered and so did father Aki. She wore her cross earrings to remind people. If there's a Heaven... then Jesus decides who gets in, and not shinigami. Jesus loves everyone. That's the whole point." She was trying to convince herself more than anyone else. That there wasn't an indelible stain on her soul that consigned her to oblivion. That she could be a good person.

I wished the same. If 2c was right, and the Death Note marked someone even after death... Light had inflicted it on Raye without his knowledge. I wanted the book to be wrong. I wanted Raye to be fine and there to be a Heaven and he was in Heaven drinking a Sam Adams and playing Madden 2017 with Albert Einstein and looking down on me and Misa and being glad we were happy. 

But a Death Note didn't seem like the creation of a just and loving God. 

I wanted it to be wrong about raising the dead. I wanted to bring Light back so I could ventilate his other brain hemisphere. 

Even Ryuzaki noted how we were affected by bringing those rules up. "...Ahem. Right. This is why I greatly appreciate you agreeing to be the only one who uses the book, miss Amane. It's an effective security measure as well."

"Well, you know..." she mumbled. "If I'm already doomed, I may as well take the hit." She wasn't meeting anyone's eyes. "And, you know... it's different when it's people who are suffering. And asked to die but the government won't let them. And Naomi says every step is okay. If I'm already, you know, doomed. It probably wouldn't be worth dooming someone else to do anyway." She didn't trust her sense of right and wrong. Not fully built yet. So she was making up for it by looking to us for guidance, erring way on the side of caution. So she could be better than who she was. Surpass the Second Kira.

"If you're doomed, you're doomed by something whose properties we can unravel," he deadpanned. "I'm not going to give up on understanding this. Shinigami travel to this world by a mechanism that must have consistent properties. Maybe we can build a rocket to Heaven. You can get there manually."

She tried really, really hard not to laugh. And she failed. And when she got the giggles, it was hard for me to resist. 

And Ryuzaki smiled. Maybe he felt like he had a friend, a little bit.

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

"I don't think I'm the right person to ask about that. I thought everything was fine for the whole time. I mean, I thought it was too severe to keep Misa locked up like that once he knew she wasn't Kira. And Ryuzaki was treating me like an intern for no reason. And he didn't really seem to care that much about catching Kira if Kira wasn't Light. Okay, so there were a couple of signs."

"When we found out the NPA cut its backing of the investigation. I'm pretty sure Ryuzaki was going to do some scheme to test my loyalty that he just never got the chance to do. That's the kind of thing someone does when he thinks he has nothing better to do. He was constantly abrasive for no reason, someone trying to test his boundaries because he's not doing work."

"I received an incomplete and inaccurate operation profile, which created a significant risk of discovery. That's very unusual for L. I believe he was distracted from carrying out his duties."

"Naomi figured out the only way I could fall in love with Light at first sight was if he was Kira. So, after that. Once you looked at it that way, you realized how close him and Ryuzaki were."

"I have never been on an operation run by L that wasn't a dumpster fire to some degree. I just roll with it."

"He talked a big game about how certain he was Light was Kira, and never did anything. I admit, I sort of checked out intellectually and deferred to him. But it is clear he treated the entire thing as a chess match between himself and Light. Instead of. You know. Trying to stop the most prolific serial killer in human history."

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Uh. Mmm. Light. Light, ah. Um. Eh. Light, and, and, uh... Light."

"Master Ryuzaki was increasingly distressed as the investigation wore on. He viewed mister Yagami as his only confidant, something for which I can only blame myself. His composure completely broke after reviving mister Yagami, believing he had negligently endangered his only friend."

"My only concern was the mistreatment of my son, and his suspicion. My involvement was what caused the investigation to derail."

### 
    
    
    * N A O M I *

We were getting out. Security quarantine ended. Taro Ogawa and Nabiki Egawa were still in custody, with Taro's deadline approaching. But the investigation was going to meet together for the first time in ten days so Ryuzaki could tell us what happened next, and free everyone to go on their way. 

Misa needed to take it easy still, and sleep a lot, but she was out of the wheelchair today. And okay to have a little alcohol. With her new lighter-tint laser glasses blocking her ruinous vision, and some pre-mixed lemon sour shochu, she was ready for the investigation wrap party. Ready to celebrate our win. Probably not going to be an open bar there, she reasoned, so she brought enough for everyone to have at least a shot. All the glasses clinked in her purse as we walked to the main room.

My drinking vice of choice in my college days, when I did drink, was riot punch. It's flavored punch mix, only you make it with vodka instead of water. You should not make flavored punch mix with vodka instead of water. It has led to many bad decisions by many college students over the years, and two of my most regrettable hookups. As I have matured in my tastes, I have settled on the simple and noble screwdriver as my celebratory beverage. Pour in some vodka, pour in some more orange juice. It's hard to mess up. 

We heard quiet conversations as we came down to the briefing room. The moment she turned the corner, Misa was cheering. "Congratulations, everybody!" she squealed. "Kira's gone! I brought drinks, too!"

Absolute silence.

Everyone was here but Aiber, Ryuzaki and Watari. And they were staring at us, at her, at her standing with one arm pumped in the air in an increasingly awkward pose. Wedy, Aizawa, Mogi, Soichiro, Matsuda. Not a word. Not a sound.

I could hear us all aging. 

"...Nobody? Nobody's celebrating?" Misa asked to break the silence. "Nobody's happy that we stopped Kira and saved the entire world?"

Soichiro looked away first. Mogi coughed. Matsuda sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. 

"...Fine." She stormed over to the center table and slammed the 2-liter full of cocktail on it. "Me and Naomi are going to be right here having a wrap party for our very important and totally successful criminal investigation that also proved magic was real and can be stopped." Two glasses slammed on the table. "If anyone wants to join that's fine by me." She poured herself a glass, tried to down it for emphasis, and gagged. "Gyah! Agh! It went up my nose!" She pounded the table with her palm, and I slid in next to her. "Agh, lemon, it burns! What is everybody's problem already?"

More silence, save the sound of her sniffing away the bubbly club soda. 

God, what the hell was wrong with me. What was I thinking. Soichiro was going to be here, for crying out loud. Why would I think this would be a happy moment.

"...You are the Second Kira," Mogi said with disdain, pointing to her. "And you," he pointed to me, and left it unsaid.

"No! I'm not!" Misa barked back. "SHE died, and Ryuzaki told all of you about it and I know he did because we got the, the same debrief thingy!" Another angry gulp of cocktail, while I held her other hand. "And didn't you already know that! Ryuzaki kidnapped her and told you all she was the Second Kira, and then he let me out, and none of you said boo about anything."

"Yeah. We didn't really believe him then," Aizawa snapped. "It was some abstract gobbledygook. Then the two of you went on a rampage. And you admitted it. You killed Ukita."

"She's dead," Misa repeated. "She killed Hirokazu Ukita for trying to save people from her. And Kazuhiko Hibima for hurting her feelings. And Oba Sadao and Tomita Yoshimi just to prove a point. And even, and even prosecutor Takamoto Nareo." All those names came to mind instantly. She'd clearly thought about them a lot. I had to hold her closer. "Because she was a weak person. And she's, she's gone now. She's dead. She's dead. And I helped to stop the things she was trying to, to make happen."

"I don't work with murderers," Wedy said. Not looking at us. "I'm a professional. You executed a defenseless suspect in front of a gaggle of witnesses."

Wedy was thinking of us as a single unit, I guess. I had no time to defend my actions. "FUCK YOU!" Misa shouted, standing up and slamming her hands on the table. The bottle wobbled and tipped, spilling a miniature lake of lemon sour cocktail onto the table. Nobody moved to right it. "Who the FUCK are you, huh? Fucking master thief cat burglar who sneaks out before there's any danger and thinks she's a better kind of criminal? Kira was a monster! He was, he was, a a a a super intelligent master manipulator and he had all of YOU all twisted around his finger and he killed, he killed thousands of people, he wanted to take over the world, he wanted, he wanted everyone to just follow him and do whatever he said and just not be people and just and just BE HIM, but he wasn't, wasn't even a PERSON he was this this this MOUTH that just wanted more and more and more and he never cared about saving anyone because everyone just had be empty like him for his, his perfect world, and and he was never going to feel sorry, and he was never going to stop! Naomi did the right thing and you know it! He had to go! There was only one way he was going to stop hurting people!" She started panting, ragged breaths. She was so, so much angrier that I had been attacked than she had.

Glug. Glug. Glug. The lemon sour sloshed back and forth as it poured out of the bottle. Misa's shoulders were heaving. I took her, gently guided her to sit back down. I was there for her, and I was okay, and I loved her. 

Silence. Breathing. In the corner, Soichiro Yagami slumped down against the desk. Holding something. Misa hadn't been the first to bring alcohol.

And Misa sat down. And she breathed, and I felt her breath getting steadier, more controlled. And she calmed herself. And she didn't keep yelling. She said, "I'm... I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the unforgivable things the Second Kira did and I'm sorry that, that there was enough in me that she could have been made out of me. And I'm trying as hard as I can to bury her and never be like her again. And make up for what she did. I, I, I don't know... how to feel bad enough for what she did. It doesn't come naturally to me. I, I keep making myself feel bad about it on purpose, like manually. Because I don't, I don't know, how someone should deal with all this." She put her hands over her nose. Deep breath. "And I know none of you know either. Everything we're, like, we're reacting to is something that should be physically impossible. So I say the Second Kira is dead because all those memories are gone, she was too weak to change me back into her when I got them back. But you don't believe me. Because your, everybody's brain is built for a world where all of that is impossible and it can only be nonsense someone was making up to get out of trouble. So I'm sorry. Everything is messed up and I don't know what to tell you or how or even if you'd be convinced if I could communicate it perfectly." 

Wedy hadn't mentioned Kitamura's death. Maybe she thought I wasn't responsible, I was magically manipulated. Or that I didn't really murder him to begin with. She didn't know what I knew. I'd never be able to truly communicate what that was, maybe not even if I had a fully functional Broca's area the size of a watermelon. Not murder. Not manipulation. Failure. Failure of so much and counted for such, such awful wrong reasons. Still an awful condemnable failure.

With a sigh, Misa got the base of the bottle with her fingertips and pulled it back upright. It was down to like 40% full. Wedy didn't really care. "I don't. Work. With murderers," she spat, almost like she was offended things were calming down.

And Misa didn't yell. Didn't get back up. She sighed. "If that's how you have to think about what happened I can't stop you. And you don't think you're going to send us to jail or get back at us. So I'm... I'm sorry we made you break your rule, and you never have to see us again after we're done. But you know it's a weird impossible situation that nobody really knows about. So I think we all did a really good thing that should be celebrated. So I'm going to have a drink. And you don't have to join and it's not like I'm gonna be carousing loudly to disturb you and can tell Ryuzaki what you think and maybe he'll agree and do something to us. we're not turning ourselves in to the police, but I don't think you care about that anyway." The words took a lot out of her. I could tell how much she couldn't stand Wedy thinking of me that way, saying her savior was just an evil murderer. But she knew what the Second Kira would have done here. And she couldn't stand that either. 

"I'll... I'll have a drink with you, Misa," Matsuda finally said. "I think we did... we definitely did more good than bad. Right?" Wedy huffed and went to the corner. Aizawa was clearly at war within himself, his desire to be a jerk vs his cynical feelings about the matter vs his desire for free booze.

And Soichiro was by himself. With a bottle. The whole room smelled of lemons and alcohol from the spill. Misa saw me looking at him, and after she poured Matsuda a glass, she tapped me. "Go." she said. "I'm, I'm fine. Fight's over. Matsuda's here."

This was something for which my interpreter wouldn't be suited. I wasn't either. But she wasn't the one who had to go.

When I stood up, Aiber came down out of the elevator. Sniffed theatrically. "Someone brought drinks, huh?" And then of course he held up a bottle of rum. "Fantastic, let's get trashed."

I wasn't. Neither was Soichiro, though when I approached him to sit across from him, his brown bottle was about half empty. He was crying. He wouldn't want to be seen like this, but, but what could I do? God, what could I say? Maybe this was wrong. I killed his son. It was the right thing to do. But just because it was the right thing doesn't mean he wasn't in pain from it.

I was reconsidering. Maybe my presence would just bring him pain. This was ill-advised. But then he spoke to me. "You killed my son," he said, not an accusation, not a wail of lament. A statement of fact. Slowly, I sat across from him. Just as slowly, with my tongue, I nodded. "My son killed your fiance. And he crippled you trying to kill you. And because of that you killed him. You took revenge instead of taking him in for justice."

Yeah. He was right. Even if I had words, what would I say?

"If I'd believed Ryuzaki..." he continued, not looking at my expression. "I was only offended. Every time. Every time Ryuzaki said Light was Kira it got my dander up. I growled, I scowled, I told him to knock it off. Because it couldn't be Light. My son was a fine, upstanding young man. The perfect student and son ready to make his father proud of him." He slumped so low the lip of his bottle touched his cheek. "If I had ever believed, ever taken it seriously. I could have noticed something. When he was at home. If I had been a better father, spent more time with him and not at work. Maybe I would catch him. Maybe it never would have happened. Your fiance would be alive and you would talk to him because Light would have thrown the notebook away or turned it in to the authorities." Long, self-hating sigh. "You killed my son. Because I couldn't stop you. I couldn't stop him."

No. No, no. This was wrong. This was not his fault. Light had the greatest detective in the world fooled. He was a manipulative sociopath. There was no way to expect his own father would know. At first I could only grunt at him in the negative. "Ah, ah, ah, ah.... Nnn, fake. Fake."

"He tricked all of us. The personality he showed was fake. But you figured out something was wrong with him when I didn't." He took a long swig, and didn't react to the alcohol at all. "What sort of father was I? Who knew nothing about the woman, the women he was dating? I should have known something was wrong. Because I should have cared more." 

And he turned around. Looked over at Misa, who had poured a glass for Aiber, and was speaking very uneasily with the two men. Mogi, clearly frustrated, had gone to get a towel. "I know that you love her," Soichiro said. "And she loves you. And you love her despite what she did, or, or what the person that used to be her did. And you saw something better in her. I think... I like to think that I am an open minded person. About homosexuality. If I, if it offends me, it's not other people's business." And then he turned back. His lips tight, eyes crinkling. A sob was trying to escape his face and being forced back. "But I loved my son too. I loved my son. I was so proud of him. Why does she... and not Light... did I not love him enough? Did you think I didn't love him enough to save him?"

No. I reached for his hand and squeezed it, just a little. No. He had to know that wasn't it. He cared. He was always trying to care for his son. He couldn't have known how that son would use that care against him. God damn it the word, the thing he couldn't do. "Uh. Ahhh. Know. Know." I was shaking my head slowly, 'no' modifies the word. "And, uh, and can. Know can." 

He couldn't have known. And yeah, Misa and Light were different. Misa was vulnerable and weak and joined up with an existing promise of safety. Light was... He decided to become God, via murder, with absolutely no prompting and judging by the timeline within only a couple of days of finding the notebook. He set his original plan with complete, confident knowledge that absolutely no amount of character growth while his memory was gone could ever dissuade his desire to be Kira when he got his memories back. He was a monster. But how do you tell a grieving father that, even with all the words in the world? That because the young man he raised was so irredeemable, because of this and this and this, the person I loved got to grow into a better person and the person he loved never would?

So I said nothing more. And Soichiro went on. "I know... I know now he was a monster. How much of a monster he was. I know he was, he was worse than Misa. The leader, the mastermind, not the follower. And I see how he was going to exploit her pain and love. But I... he..." That sob made a break for it again, only to be tackled at the last second by his self-control. "...When the two of you went rogue. He told me that you knew my name and my face, and I was a security risk to the team. He had me locked in a cell so you couldn't make me undermine the investigation. But he... he knew that wasn't going to happen. And that I would have done anything he told me to, even kill the both of you. He locked me up so I wouldn't be caught in the crossfire. That I wouldn't be in danger." A single tear fled down his face, a single drop to vent all that terrible helplessness and loathing. "He cared about me. Naomi. That monster. He still loved me.

"I hated you so much," he sighed, hand over his eyes. "When I thought you had tried to kill him with Kira's power. I was ready to gun both of you down. How dare you. How dare you hurt my boy. My only son. But I, now I..." Another sigh. No words.

"What if I wanted revenge, Naomi?" He looked into my eyes. So sad. "Would that work? Would that make it right? Would it bring back my son?"

I killed his son. As justified as it was. But he was right. That still didn't make it hurt less. What could I tell him? He was wrong to be in pain? To suck it up? I mattered more?

Maybe it was because I just didn't think I would be alive by now. That I had no idea what I would do, or be. But I found myself unbuttoning my holster, and putting the gun on the desk between us.

"What... is this?" he grumbled. "Is that what you want? To die for your sins?"

No, I didn't. And I indicated as such. But then I said: "Can."

"You killed my son. So you're giving me the chance to kill you." Yes. I was. "Because... what? You can't do anything better? That's how you think you're better than him? You murder, but then you dare the family to do something about it? What will you do if I take it and I pull the trigger?"

"Dead."

Did I think he would do it? No. Probably not. But I wasn't tricking him, or humiliating him. Maybe my values were messed up by what had happened, or the brain damage. But I felt this was the only way I could show him respect, and yeah, that I wasn't the same as Kira. His pain was as real as mine. If I had the right to revenge so did he.

Maybe that was the only way to not be Kira. 

He stared down at the gun. Like he was afraid to touch it. "Sayu... They heard from the news before they heard from me. I had to tell my family over the phone what really happened. Sachiko still doesn't understand. She says Sayu has gone catatonic. We have, we have no idea how we can make her better. What happened to Light, what Light was. She couldn't handle it. Shut down. How am I going to, is killing you going to fix that? How am I going to fix that?"

I pointed at my head. The little gap in my hair, where the scar was. Where the shard of rock cracked my skull and caused a lesion in my brain that robbed me of coherent speech. The word was so far away, so hard to grasp. "Um." Something simple. "Errrr..." The only thing he could do. Only thing I could do. "Try."

He looked at me. He looked down at the gun.

"What you did was wrong. You murdered my son. You could have captured him."

He picked it up in his hands. Shaking.

"But he... He wasn't really my son, was he? I don't know when he stopped being my son. But he did. You couldn't fix him any more than I could." Deep breath. "I know what you're trying to tell me. And it... What you did was wrong, Naomi Misora. But it... it isn't far enough away from right to cost your life. Not nearly. And that's the only thing you can give in trade. I don't want revenge."

He slid my gun back to me. So one question remained. //YOUR PREFERENCE: I am asking how you would prefer for this thing to be!// I pointed at myself. "Do."

"I don't know what I want you to do," he mumbled. "Commit yourself to justice? Turn yourself in? I've had enough of justice. I've seen enough of what the police do. Just... just leave me alone. Once this meeting is over I never want to see you or Misa Amane ever again."

And I left him with his pain. He hated me. Hated Misa. Hated himself more than anything. Whatever small thing I could do to let him know, that I, I couldn't fix things, nobody could, but I respected his pain. I hope he understood that, maybe it resolved some tiny bit of the anguished doubt in him. Maybe he could draw the line there of how he was better than me. Maybe... I don't know.

I had a shot of lemon sour. Nobody felt much like having a wrap party. Except Aiber, and he couldn't party by himself.

At least it wasn't long before Watari wheeled Ryuzaki into the room. 

"Good. Everyone is here. I know you've completed your debriefings, so I'll get right to it." He tried to shift in his wheelchair like it was a much more regal seat, while Watari pushed him into the head of the chamber. "With the capture or death of all suspects and recovery of all assorted paraphernalia, the Kira Special Investigative Team is shutting down. It is my position, in my capacity as L, that the Second Kira died in custody on May 31, 2007 by means of self-inflicted supernatural trauma." He pointedly looked over to Misa. So did everyone but Soichiro. "L will release an official statement within two weeks, once I have finalized the closure of the investigation. Two of the notebooks will have an unwritable section of cover removed so as to grant the ability to see shinigami, and the rest encased in inert material to prevent their use. The third will be placed in a secure biometric vault, to be removed and used exclusively by miss Amane." And then he glanced at everyone but Misa, lingering on Aizawa. "Under heavily armed supervision, exclusively for the purpose of testing terminally ill volunteers and, once the safest method is found, immunizing individuals who have nuclear launch codes." 

I knew Misa was okay with that too. So long as whatever official needed to be immunized provided a video where they addressed her by name and described what was going to happen to them in detail and there were at least two people with shotguns and masks in the room and the Death Note was bolted to the table and there was a camera overhead to show everyone exactly what she was writing and two completely different people signed off on the accuracy of her circumstances of death before she wrote in the name. Had to be absolutely sure that everyone knew she could not possibly use the power that had stained her soul for evil purposes. Convince herself, most of all. 

"L will not be publicly releasing the details of Kira's methods," Ryuzaki continued, "to avoid public panic. I will announce only that it cannot be replicated, without equipment that cannot be created. As all of you are privy to the details of the Death Note and shinigami by virtue of being in the investigation, you may be called upon for special security clearance if the details of Kira's power must be verified for other purposes." He rolled his hands out a bit. "Ah, essentially, when someone claims to have found Kira's power, or a police department panics and thinks Kira has killed someone, I won't always be able to tell them why they are wrong. So one of you may be asked to look at the details of the incident and tell them that you know how Kira works and that it does not match. Should anyone like to learn a second or third language to facilitate this, I have access to the most skilled language tutors in the world, and I can enroll you in a three-month intensive course." That last bit was... not really sarcastic, but it had the slight hint of something. Ironic? Wry?

"Wedy and Aiber, your completion bonuses have been wired to your Swiss accounts," he said. Ryuzaki had gone past the contentious parts without objections, and he had other shit to wrap up. "Everyone who was forced to terminate their employment to aid the investigation, you have a five-year pension that continues your wage from me while you find other employment, and a one-time completion bonus. Congratulations. I thank each of you for your service and each of you were invaluable and professional." 

Matsuda was rubbing the back of his head again. I assumed that he was only talking to the fired police officers when he talked about being professional, even though technically Misa also terminated her employment to aid the investigation.

"For obvious reasons, the institution of L will now be concerned with more matters than the solving of crimes, so I will need assistants. Any of you who continue your employment with L as consulting detectives will be given an on-call wage as well as per-case payment. Obviously this applies to miss Misora and miss Amane, but each of you are invited to join me as well." Wait. What? "No matter how much or how little you may have done in this case, your presence here reflects an incredible mental fortitude and commitment to justice. I would be grateful to be able to call upon any one of you." He was laying it out in a total deadpan, like he was reading from a script, even though I knew he probably really meant the words he was saying. Just didn't know how to convey them well enough. And Misa was nodding along, because I think she did respect the rest of the team even though they didn't like her. She wasn't surprised or taken aback at all.

We were joining L? When was I supposed to be informed? I mean, I knew she was gonna be shipped in to unlock the notebook and test it. But, I didn't think... I never asked. Was it just so obvious it went unsaid? Was I the only one who didn't really want to work with L?

"All of your clothing and personal effects have been searched and verified to not contain any Death Note material," he continued. "Once all of our captives are taken care of, this building will be demolished and its remains burned to destroy any possible hidden backup paper. You are free to stay in the provided lodgings until that time. Taro Ogawa will be provided with a means of suicide that gives the greatest chance for revival at the appropriate time. Nabiki Egawa will remain in our custody until the delivery of her child, and will be subject to secret trial to avoid leaking the details of Kira."

I mean, I had 'worked with' L before. Though most of what I thought was working with L, was working with the killer impersonating him and leading me on a masturbatory wild goose chase. So I thought of L as... I don't know. I mean, I joined the investigation, didn't I? But BB said that dealing with L was about sending absurd taunting serial killer clues, like Zodiac, the BTK, Son of Sam. And L would be the jackass going "Oh, what message is this killer sending us" even though none of those crimes was ever solved by deciphering the killer's clues because they get solved by forensics and police work like all of the other killings that aren't ridiculous one-in-a-millions. And then this investigation, well, it was a total shitshow. Joining L wasn't some great, reverent honor. I was far less impressed with the guy than the people he had under him. He just said he was going to subject someone to a secret trial.

"If any of you have questions or concerns about wrapping the investigation, or wish to contact me about employment, I will be available all of this week," he said. "All of you should be proud of what you accomplished as a team. You have defeated the most dangerous criminal to ever walk the Earth. The security quarantine is over, and I trust you not to speak the details of these events to anyone."

But, I mean, I didn't want Nabiki on a secret trial because I wanted someone to blow her head off. And where was I planning on going? I hadn't really thought about it. Stay with my parents? Be Misa's housewife in Hollywood while she waited tables and tried to break back in to acting under an assumed name? I couldn't think of another way to use my skill set. The FBI betrayed me and my fiance, I'd never go back to them. The Japanese NPA had shown what a cowardly and traitorous and corrupt organization it was, and oh yeah I killed one of their high-level administrators, I couldn't join them. Go to a local American police academy under an assumed name? Go into independent business as a PI and do nothing but drink and catch people cheating on their spouses? Misa looked forward to working for L, I think, and to working with me. Was I going to tell her that L was corrupt and incompetent and would be a lead weight shackled to my neck? Where else was I going to go? How else was she going to be a force for good like she needed to be? How would working for L allow her to be that force for good?

Why didn't I have a plan? Why didn't I think I was going to keep living after this?

"Excuse me," Watari asked. "Is that alcohol I smell? Did one of you bring alcohol to this meeting?"

Misa blushed. "Yeah. I thought it was... gonna be a different kind of meeting. It was lemon sour. I spilled most of it."

"Fantastic," he said as he pulled a brown bottle from his coat. "Let's get plastered."

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

"--subject on everyone's mind. Sources close to L are reporting that the latest pause in Kira killings is due to the capture of Kira himself. While no details on the killer or his unprecedented method are forthcoming at this time, Kira is believed to have been a male in his mid-thirties, unmarried and with no familial ties, working as--"

"--first murder since the capture of Kira, the brutal execution of the defenseless To-Oh University student Light Yagami, took place in front of dozens of witnesses yet the police say they have no leads. Please, join us in solidarity at the 'When We Lost Kira, We Lost Our Light' rally, to show the criminals of the world that their brutal pogroms will not go unopposed--"

"--question I'm asking, how will this affect the election? We have seen both parties go through, through these painful realignments as they try to pivot to what the American people believe about Kira, we've seen Romney and Pelosi unseated in, in just brutal infighting. And now it may become a moot point. So who has the best shot coming into 2008, and how will they pick up--"

"--manager Taro Matsui could not be reached for comment. However, the manager of Sunshine Talent Agency had this to say:"

"While all of us enjoyed working with Misa Amane, we cannot ignore the controversy surrounding her views and associations, and as such we have mutually chosen to terminate our relationship. We wish her the best in her future endeavors, whatever they may be. However in the wake of this, we are pleased to announce the debut of the very talented Nori Kaku who will be taking the role of Kasumi in the upcoming film--"

"--know it's all just horses***, right? Are you gonna bleep that? Kira was already being worshipped as a God. He's not some jobsworth at a desk for, for Honda or something! L could never nab a man with those capabilities, and he knows it. It's all a front. Kira's faithful know he's going to come back, and anyone who started celebrating in his absence is going to answer--"

"--sorry to inform our viewers that Sakura's programming for this time slot has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. Instead, we invite you to please enjoy an encore broadcast of 'Orange Days', starring--"

"--breathe easier tonight, as L has confirmed in an official statement that Kira has been neutralized. The news comes as a great relief to some, but many aren't feeling much safer, and already people are wondering if they will have to take justice into their own--"

"--only question that we need answered, and it's not being answered. How did he do it? And could someone else? Kira's power could make the secret to nuclear weaponry look like a recipe for salad dressing. And right now, thanks to an unelected internationalist with no oversight whatsoever, we've no idea how to keep that secret in the box where it--"

"--the facts. Our country has the lowest crime rate of any in the world, the envy of the entire world. Most of our crimes are caused by foreigners who sneak into the country. And yet still, as prolific a killer as Kira was, he never even ran out of native Japanese criminals to kill. How did he always have another irredeemable scumbag on hand to kill to prove something? Yes, I believe Kira was a state actor. I believe Kira was working for the Chinese, and that this is merely another part of their plan, to embolden the criminal element and--"

"--going to protect us from the criminals? These men were walking around Japan with total impunity before and now they will again, raping and murdering as they pleased. My daughters are terrified, terrified to even leave the house! Is L willing to step in and keep them safe? Or is he going to waltz off on a private jet to the next--"

"--gonna go away for a long time. So was it worth it, Kira? Was it all worth it? Was, pfft... I got some in my mouth... Kira! Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

"You'll be sorry, L! That space chicken is coming! It's coming soon! And when it does, what will you say? Can you look it in the eyes and say LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S SATURDAY--"

"--disgusting to see people here taking a Japanese issue like the tragic death of Light Yagami and turning it into a political wedge. His family has had to flee their home because of all the unwanted attention. And let's, let's look at the facts. The Japanese police aren't investigating his death because they publicly came out in support of Kira. Yagami's father was a respected police officer who resigned his commission in protest of this fact. Rumors still circulate about his involvement with Misa Amane, who also had to flee public life for coming out against Kira. Someone in that video, we don't know who, is clearly declaring themselves to be Kira before he's killed. They made their own victim into their martyr--"

"--America? Nothing. Twelve FBI agents sent, ground up, and then denied all resources. Japan? Nothing. Helpless. Surrendered to Kira officially. The UK? Did Scotland Yard show up to help? Kira shows that our governments are not willing to protect us, and the only thing keeping us from falling into anarchy is L. If that scares you as much as it scares me, then it's time for us as one to rise up and take action--"

"--have any idea what they're talking about. None. Don't know any criminals. Okay? These are all people who live in private gated communities and clutch pearls about black people moving into their neighborhood. The actual people who need protecting don't fear criminals, because, because let me finish, because they know their friends and family are criminals. They only fear an unjust system that poses a false dichotomy between Kira and L to manufacture--"

"--think all of us can agree: Thank you, L, from the bottom of our hearts. You've protected civilization as only you could, and the world is in your debt. Turning to sports, it looks like the Yatagarasu are at it again--"

### 
    
    
    * M I S A *

They don't really do, like official weddings between girls. It's illegal. But there were unofficial weddings. At the end, instead of "you may kiss the bride," the priest says "you brides may kiss," and I think that's really cute! And it's not official anyway so Naomi doesn't technically have to say "I do" and feel bad for searching for the words and she can just nod. And then we lift our veils up for each other and smooch. It's okay if it's not a huge gala wedding as long as it's meaningful for us, and we get lots of pictures of both of us in white wedding dresses.

Misa. No. Stop it. Stop getting googly-eyed like a schoolgirl and planning a dream wedding. You haven't even known her that long in the grand scheme of things. And you are a crazy person. Maybe she doesn't like girls all that much. Or what you had was fleeting and now the investigation is over it's going to go away.

But on the other hand, she shared her blood with me. And that's really special and intimate, you don't do that for a fling. Maybe we could do a thing at the wedding where we like prick our fingers and then push them together as a symbolic blood tie -- nah, probably not, everyone wants a Catholic wedding because it's this special ritual thing, you can't change too much. We're already two girls and one of us won't be saying "I do". I don't have to put my own personal crazy into it. I just have to be hers. And she can wait to drink my blood on the honeymoon. And then I'll be Miss Misa Misora. Or, no, in America don't they add your names together? She would want to do it the American way, right? Misa Amane+Misora. Misa Amasora. I'm not sure how it works.

No! Cut it out Misa! Everyone is really mad and this is no time to be gushing! You don't know if it will work out and you should feel sadder than you are! Bad Misa! She still loves Raye, and Raye was horribly murdered by the guy you used to worship and maybe she's never gonna get over him! And you're gonna be super jealous of a dead man because you are a crazy person and you won't be able to do anything about it and you'll drive her away!

But Raye wouldn't want her to be sad forever, right? He'd want her to be happy. She can keep his engagement ring on and, like, and honor his memory, and that's not bad, that's very kind. I would be happy for her to do that! But she doesn't have to never get over him, right? I can, I can do it faster than most people, but it's still a thing normal people do! They heal! I healed! And I totally healed in the wrong way and Naomi basically had to do the thing where like your leg bones knit together at like an angle so they have to break it again so they can put it together right, but then we did that! And the Second Kira is gone! And SHE was super jealous because SHE was hollow and knew she wasn't worth anything and didn't have anything to offer so someone could leave her at any time!

But even if she's gone, the Second Kira still had 90% of herself in common with me. At least. I could be dangerous. Maybe Naomi couldn't stand it. She'd have to babysit me all the time to make sure I didn't brainwash myself to evil, or something. No, I knew the reason. I didn't deserve happiness, or 90% of me didn't deserve it and the other 10% couldn't get it. This isn't a time to be happy. I'm empty, and someone else filled me up with something that wasn't evil, but I was still hollow and I shouldn't be rejoicing. The Second Kira was still made out of me and I could never make her deeds right. I shouldn't be getting over things like this. Those people she killed will never get over it and their families aren't over it yet.

But she really was dead and gone and I wasn't her even if I was similar, so I could just do good things, but she wouldn't weigh down on me. Naomi was proud of me. I was going to rebuild myself to be a better person than the Second Kira was and yeah Naomi was going to have a bunch of input on that but I wasn't HOLLOW, it was going to be my decision too. I'm still a person. Being a new person means I am a person. I have the right to be Misa Amane or Misa Amasora or whoever.

Would I believe it if they told me "the people who killed your family and covered it up lost their memories and are different people now?" Probably not. I shouldn't get to celebrate. I had an obligation to be sadder. 

Argh! I couldn't stand it! I'd been beating myself up while trying to jump out of the ring like this more and more all week. That guilt didn't come, I don't know, naturally, but more and more I was just constantly making myself sad because I was too happy and hopeful. I didn't know what to do! How do I, like what is the protocol? How do I wrap this?

Ryuzaki had us eating a cheesecake. I couldn't even eat it.

Okay, I could. I was. I was eating it. But I couldn't enjoy it.

Actually I was enjoying it too much so I had to keep making myself sadder. 

Naomi kept one hand on my leg, squeezing, like a reassuring presence. I really appreciated it, but didn't know if I deserved it. It was obvious she was super nervous and conflicted about being L's "successor" out of basically nowhere. I needed to support her like normal, but I also needed to be her Watari, only I wasn't in the Special Air Services for like thirty years or whatever. I definitely had to start the English classes soon. And it would help if I could pick locks and hack computers. At least the second one because she can't type, like, specific commands to make them work. And dig bullets out of people. Can Ryuzaki get me nurse's training? Or, ooh, like that half-nurse half-doctor where you only know how to treat maladies people actually get? Watari could definitely extract bullets from someone while piloting a helicopter. Oh, I need to get my driver's license too. I could learn capoeira to defend myself. Actually no. Is there something capoeira is bad at dealing with? I could learn the martial art that was good at dealing with that, so we covered each other's bases. I wanna say aikido? If I was gonna say helping Naomi was bringing enough good into the world I was going to have to do a crazy good job at it.

Naomi loved me but Soichiro loved Light too. I heard them before. Light could have said he wanted to help Ryuzaki, or even his dad. 

All I was doing right now other than eating was waiting. We all were. Watari had set the table for five people and there were four of us. Me, Naomi, Ryuzaki, and Watari. Watari and Ryuzaki were chatting about something. I don't think I ever saw them talk like normal people before. 

Anyway one third of the way into my first slice our guest came. I had on my green rust glasses so I couldn't see names or lifespans, so I couldn't see who he was right away. He was silhouetted by the light of the hallway so he was mostly in shadow. But he was grinning. God, his teeth were so white. My glasses made the entire world a few shades greener and I saw them as an absolutely perfect ivory. 

He took a few steps in, enough I could see he was an older white guy. Dropped a briefcase by the chair set out for him. And then he said something in English, which I couldn't understand at all, but it sounded like "「Congratulations, Huntsman. I'm sure your masters are very proud of you.」"

And then Ryuzaki said back in also English, "「What a surprise to see you here, Agent. I never thought you cared about the well-being of the world.」"

The white guy took his seat and flipped himself a pre-sliced slice of cheesecake onto his plate. "「Leslie, you mailed me an access card. Can we please cut the bullshit?」"

And Ryuzaki looked over to me. Back at the guy. "Philip. It's rude to speak in a language not all of us can understand." Thank you! I know Naomi could follow them but it sounded like there was some kind of menacing dance of veiled threats or something and I was totally lost. 

"「Right. Crap.」" The guy, Philip, he switched over to speaking Japanese. He spoke pretty slow and his pronunciation was bad but, like, I know it's a hard language, I'm gonna sound worse learning his. "Regardless. I wanted to congratulate Naomi on her work. My main business, however, is that I am here to meet a man named Taro Ogawa, speak to him about a woman who inflicted a horrible injustice upon him, and inform him of his options in the matter." He tapped the briefcase. "If someone left out some of San Michel's cheesecake on the way, I can't be held responsible for wanting to stop by and have a bite." And that was what he did, a decent chunklet on his fork. "「Oh my God. It's better than I remember.」" Didn't need to speak English to get that one.

This was the guy. He handed Naomi the magic gun. Him and Ryuzaki were talking about ruling the world or something. And he was gonna give that poor police officer, who barely came out of cardiac arrest with some facial paralysis that might not go away, the same weapon. Naomi was looking at him warily, like she didn't know what to think. No. Like she wanted to think she liked him but didn't know if she was right.

I was looking up at him with my eyes wide. He was like the American version of the god of death or something. He kind of put all this in motion but he had no idea any of it would happen this way. Was he like a mysterious benefactor or a villain? He noticed me staring at him, and he squinted. "Misa Amane, right? I originally came to Japan to talk to you. Realized by the time I arrived that there was no point. The prosecutor who betrayed you had died of a heart attack." He took another bite and looked away from me. "I like your glasses, by the way."

"Agent," Ryuzaki said. "While I appreciate your presence, I can't say I approve of your... criminal activity."

"It's your fault, Huntsman," he said with more cheesecake in his mouth. "It was very foolish of you to have the plans, funding, and the rare material components for your special vault all in the same shipment. Now that Cole hijacked it, there will be no way for your employers to trace where the Locker ends up."

"How is Cole, by the way?" Ryuzaki asked. 

"He is getting back into the swing of things," Philip said. "He left your drivers alive. One of them won't be able to use his hand for a while."

"Ohhhhh," I said. "You guys aren't supposed to work together. But you did. So you're acting like it's coincidence that he's gonna make the Death Note vault for you. Right?" I looked over to Naomi. "That's what's going on, right?" She nodded, and then she realized she did it too fast and she had no idea if she answered yes or no, but then I think she guessed she got the right one by chance. And that means I got what was going on.

"If the room was bugged," Ryuzaki said, "which it is not, my employers aren't known to react quickly nor nimbly to such news. She will be fine."

"I didn't have a problem with her," Philip said. "I was just thinking. About Kira." He looked over to Naomi. "Having his fucking brains scattered all over the parking lot. I hope he whimpered like a little bitch before you took him out." He grinned. Now his teeth were pure white with veins of red.

Him and Naomi shared this look of really dark satisfaction. I don't know if I should have been worried by it, or disturbed, because I don't have that kind of equipment in my head. But then she caught herself, I think, so that indicated to me it was probably a bad thing. She looked down at her slice. "Uh." She wasn't just looking for words, but how she felt. "Er, and... Uh... Safe. Safe."

"What matters is she made people safe," I interpreted for her, and she didn't look like I got it wrong.

"Of course it is," he said. Bite. Chew. Little, tiny moan. "I suppose that L already has his claws in you to do his work. Now that Kira is dead, his employers are the worst criminals on the planet. You could accomplish a lot with me. I doubt that is an option on the table."

"I would think that Kira would have shown you how counterproductive your crusade against stability was," L deadpanned.

"Kira showed more than ever the importance of unseating the corrupt and powerful before they can perform more atrocities," Philip said back. 

This was probably some old Illuminati argument that went back a billion years and maybe they were reincarnated spirits of abstract metaphysical concepts or something. I don't know. Things were already crazy, right? But if this was a political argument for vampires that went on forever then they wouldn't hash it out over cheesecake. And I had some questions.

"Okay, I don't get it," I asked. I made sure to talk a little slower than I usually do in case I was hard for a non-native speaker to understand. "You seem to hate Kira a lot. But you also think killing people who did bad things is really good. Is it, like, is it ONLY the innocent people that make a difference? Because you, like, you hate everything he stands for." I looked around the table, feeling small, like a child who doesn't understand right and wrong yet. "I mean... I'm sure there's a difference. There's rules about when you should and shouldn't. I know Naomi did a good thing. I just... am not sure exactly what the difference is?"

"There is no difference," Ryuzaki mumbled. Philip was thinking, mulling over how exactly to put it into words. And then into words in a language he wasn't as good with. 

"Kira... thought that he was Justice. Justice involves someone you have never met deciding he knows what will make your world into a better place, whether you agree or not," Philip said.

"It's the only way to have a civilization instead of a bloodbath," Ryuzaki shot back. I wished he'd stop interrupting. I wasn't next to him so I couldn't elbow him. "Revenge is personally satisfying but its hunger never ends. Justice is impartial and fair. Rules have no meaning and thus no positive effect unless they are agreed upon by all parties -- personal vendettas only create uncertainty, misery, and death."

"Are you finished?" Philip asked. "Okay. I don't kill people. Not many," he continued. "I give people a means to take back power over their own world because it was taken, directly from them, by someone they know about." He popped a strawberry into his mouth. "The difference between us? At 32 names per day, one hour killing per day, Kira killed people after less than two minutes of researching who they are and what they did and if they were even guilty. Because he thought they were a category he was safe to make judgments on. Because he was completely removed from all of it. Every single briefcase I hand out contains reams of incontrovertible evidence of betrayal that I personally verify. And half the time? The people I give them to decide they don't need revenge. I got a guy who comes to pick them back up to be reused. Because it's their choice."

It was clear he was really talking to Ryuzaki, not me. This was clearly a clash of deep value systems that I wasn't going to figure out, but, at least I got where he was coming from. I don't know if I believed it, but... "Okay... That sort of makes sense. But, okay. Hypothetical question. Let's say... there was someone who did some very bad things. And killed people because of how weak she was and spread misery and death. And then she died. But there was someone else... who happened to have the same body and brain and 90% of her personality but who didn't do those things and was trying very hard to be a good person. Should she be killed for revenge? How does she know, like, for a fact, she shouldn't?"

"I am going to assume this involves the supernatural bullshit in the Kira case," he said, and I nodded. "I just can't answer that question for you. It's not really up to me. Even if it was, I have no idea what to do to make whatever it was right."

Oh. 

Oh.

I got it.

"Naomi, uh..." I said. "you know how we talked about, about building myself up? To be better than she was? I think... I think I know what Misa Amane has to do. Before we leave. You might not like it."

### 
    
    
    * * * * *

"Ms. Ukita. Hi. I'm, I'm sorry to bring you out here. It's about your husband.

"I'm... Yeah. He died because he fought against Kira. He was very brave. I know. I was... I know who killed him. She was... Like, she was me. But not really. It's, it's complicated.

"No, wait. Just, just please calm down. I have more to... Listen... I'm going to... I'm going to tell you what I did, okay? I'm going to tell you exactly what I did, and what the person who killed him did, even though I don't remember all of it personally. And then, and then I'm gonna tell you everything that happened after that. How I helped to catch Kira.

"And a lot of it is going to be very hard to believe. But I have videotapes, audiotapes, and sworn affidavits from everyone involved that prove what I am saying is true. Including the sworn testimony of the World's Greatest Detective. I have evidence here of all of it that's hard to deny. That's why you signed the confidentiality agreement. Not for my protection, but, because some of this is very secret and you can't tell the world. Other people won't even be able to see some of this unless they touch -- well, we'll get to that.

"I am going to tell you why I don't think that I am the same person who killed your husband. I think that person is dead. I think that the person I am is able to do good in the world. I think that I have done good in the world. I would like to believe that by helping to stop Kira, your husband would have forgiven me, and say I deserve to have a second chance. I think, I mean, I obviously wouldn't be here if I didn't think I had a pretty good case!

"But I don't know that for certain. I don't know if he would think I deserve that. I can't make that decision for you and there is nobody else who can. Making that decision for you is what Kira would do. There's, now, there's nothing I can do to bring him back. I only have one thing I can offer you.

"So then, when I'm done, I'm going to open this briefcase for you. You have to put what's inside back before you can leave, okay?

"Inside of this briefcase is a gun.

"Anything you want to do with it before you put it back, it won't be against the law."


End file.
